Transcultural aspects of eating disorders and body image disturbance‡

Abstract

Background: Unlike the majority of ‘culture-bound syndromes’, eating disorders are one of the few mental disorders initially conceptualized as ‘culture-bound’ to North America/Europe. Social norms vary massively within cultures-class, ethnicity and gender. Over time there have been substantial changes in body shape preferences.Aim: To describe some key areas in the transcultural aspects of eating disorders (ED) and body image disturbance (BID).Method: This lecture describes a different and complementary manner of understanding eating disorders, specifically anorexia nervosa (AN), from a cultural, social and psychoanalytic perspective.Results: Social norms vary massively within cultures, social strata, ethnicity and gender. Social norms also vary over time leading to substantial changes in body shape preferences and the epidemiology of eating disorders.Conclusions: Understanding eating disorders requires integration of psychological factors into a cultural and epidemiological context.