Acculturation and Eating Disorder Symptoms in Adolescent Girls

Abstract

We examine the relation between acculturation and eating disorder symptoms in a normative sample of 920 adolescent girls of high school age. Results indicate that acculturation is positively associated with structured-interview defined partial syndrome eating disorders in Hispanic girls (13.6% vs. 0% prevalence rate in more acculturated vs. less acculturated Hispanic girls), but not Asian or European American girls. There was no relation between acculturation and either weight concerns or body dissatisfaction across the 3 ethnicities. This study demonstrates that level of acculturation, as measured by language spoken at home and time lived in the United States, may influence rates of eating disorders in Hispanic adolescents but not in Asian adolescents.