March 27, 2009

Study: Black Girls More Likely to Develop Bulimia

Posted by Nina Jacinto at 11:44AM

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A new study at USC shows that black girls are twice as likely than white girls to develop bulimia, and that girls in low income brackets are 153 percent more likely to develop bulimia than girls in the highest income bracket. Lead researcher Michelle Goeree's findings help dispel the mainstream myth that women of color are somehow immune to eating disorders, and that only upper-middle class white women can develop eating disorders.

The circulation of the study exposes a huge gap between the the results of research regarding eating disorders and mainstream perceptions of the populations affected by disordered eating. There is still so much research that needs to be done to have a larger and more accurate picture of how women of color and low income communities are affected by eating disorders.

The studies that have been done are few and far between and show inconsistent results. In 2005, NPR interviewed Professor Ruth Striegel-Moore about research she had conducted that found no cases of anorexia among the 1,000 black women in the study, but found cases of bulimia and binging, though in less numbers than in white women. In 2001, the department of Psychology at Florida State University put out research that showed that racial stereotypes have an affect on the way people are able to diagnose and recognize eating disorders among women of color (PDF). In 1994, clinical researchers concluded from an Essence Magazine survey that African American women were at least as likely to develop disordered eating in the same proportions as white women (PDF). Attempts to dispel the belief that women of color are unaffected by eating disorders were circulating in journals even in 1990.

Despite all this work, I look at the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) website and see only one small article dedicated to thinking about eating disorders in women of color. The article reminds readers that women of color are affected by body image issues and provides a list of further reading. But it doesn't feel like enough. And it was written in 2005.

Despite the work that has been done, there is still a long way to go. Research needs to be conducted to examine how eating disorders take shape among different ethnic groups and socioeconomic communities. Funding must increase for this research so that eventually healthcare policy will take into consideration the fact that middle-class white women are not the only ones suffering from disordered eating. Education and treatment programs must consider the socially constructed messages of the media and how these messages affect low income and people of color communities. Furthermore, the fact that blacks and Latinos are affected disproportionately by obesity and its effects (including hypertension, heart disease and type 2 diabetes) emphasizes the urgency for more research to be done linking disordered eating with health and nutritional education and policy in these communities.