Eating and general psychopathology in a sample of Caucasian and ethnic minority subjects

Abstract

Most research on eating disorders (ED) has been conducted on Caucasian women. Considerable uncertainty remains as to the presentation of ED in ethnic minorities. The primary aim of this study was to investigate whether or not Caucasian and minority eating disorder subjects differ on key ED symptomatology and general psychopathology. This descriptive investigation examined the separate and combined influences of ED diagnosis (bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, or overweight subjects with no eating disorder) and ethnicity (Caucasian vs. minority) on ED symptomatology and general psychopathology. Suitable subjects, 109 Caucasian and 40 minority women, attended a clinical interview and completed several ED and general psychopathology questionnaires. Clear differences were shown in terms of ED and general psychopathology between the ED groups, with bulimia nervosa subjects scoring consistently higher than the other two diagnostic groups. However, Caucasian and minority subjects scored similarly on the eating disorder and general psychopathology measures. Therefore, the findings suggest that current ED treatment protocols found to be effective with Caucasian subjects may not need to be modified before application to minority patients with ED.