The increased prevalence of body dissatisfaction and eating disordered behaviors (EDBs) among African American women wairants further examination of critical factors that may contribute to this recent trend. This study sought to investigate whether ethnic identity, spirituality, and internalization of the thin ideal would be associated with decreased body dissatisfaction and EDBs in a sample of 55 African American college women. Higher scores on meaning in life were negatively associated with body dissatisfaction. Spiritual transcendence was negatively associated with internalization of the thin ideal. Both body dissatisfaction and internalization of the thin ideal were positively associated with EDBs.

This book examines the relationship between culture and psychopathology to determine if proposed psychological risk factors ( low ethnic identification and high level of acculturative stress) are predictive of several key mental health variables related to suicide and eating disorder behaviors (depression, anxiety, suicidality, body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness) in individuals of African descent in the U.S. Results confirm the hypothesis that low ethnic identification attitudes (low African Self-fortification) interacts with acculturative stress to predict greater suicidality in African American men while a low value for African Centered Relationships predicts Drive for Thinness in African American women.

Narrative Journeys of Young Black Women with Eating Disorders: A Hidden Community among Us explores how the realities of three young black women who have experienced eating disorders since childhood were transformed, discussing the larger implications of disordered eating in underrepresented populations. People of all ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds are susceptible to their grips, yet black women and children are experiencing eating disorders and suffering in silence due to shame and stigma. Due to barriers such as the conventional thought that eating disorders do not occur in the black community, they are often not acknowledged, discussed, or treated properly. Stephanie Hawthorne argues that these women’s lived experiences substantiate the need for culturally sensitive and inclusive prevention, intervention, and care when it comes to mental health, and offers recommendations to schools, clinicians, parents, and adolescents to accomplish this goal. Scholars of communication, mental health, race studies, education, and medicine will find this book particularly useful.

Although the research on disordered eating and body image dissatisfaction among European American women is burgeoning, knowledge about eating disorder (ED) symptomatology among African American women is still limited. In order to provide effective treatment and prevention programs, it is imperative to investigate risk and protective factors of ED symptomatology among diverse groups of women. Racist and sexist discrimination have been conceptualized by scholars as putative predictors of disordered eating and body image dissatisfaction, whereas positive cultural and gender identities have been postulated as potential protective factors against ED symptomatology and body image dissatisfaction among African American women. Accordingly, the purpose of the present study was threefold: (1) to examine the relations between racist discrimination, sexist discrimination, ethnic identity, feminist identity, ED symptomatology and body image dissatisfaction; (2) to investigate whether discrimination predicts ED symptomatology and body image dissatisfaction; and (3) to determine whether ethnic and feminist identities moderate (i.e., buffer) the relations between the proposed predictor and criterion variables within a sample (N = 302) of university-affiliated, African American women. The primary hypotheses were as follows: (1) higher levels of discrimination would predict higher levels of ED symptomatology and body image dissatisfaction; (2) higher levels of ethnic identity and feminist identity would predict lower levels of disordered eating and body image dissatisfaction; and (3) ethnic and feminist identities would individually and collectively moderate the relations between discrimination and ED symptomatology and between discrimination and body image dissatisfaction. As expected, higher levels of ethnogender discrimination significantly predicted higher levels of ED symptomatology. Unexpectedly, higher levels of ethnogender discrimination did not predict higher levels of body image dissatisfaction. As anticipated, higher levels of ethnic identity and feminist identity significantly predicted lower levels of body image dissatisfaction. Unexpectedly, higher levels of ethnic and feminist identity did not predict lower levels of disordered eating. Finally, neither ethnic nor feminist identity was found to moderate the discrimination-ED symptomatology relation or the discrimination-body image dissatisfaction relation. Putative explanations for the aforementioned findings are offered as are implications for research, practice and prevention.

"Drawing on their many years of clinical experience, the authors show how a theistic perspective of healing and change can enrich therapies currently in practice for eating disorders, including individual, group, and family therapy as well as 12-step programs. They propose an agenda for future research focusing on measures and research designs that will help investigators study the etiology of eating disorders as well as treatment outcomes as they relate to clients' public and private devotion and expressions of spirituality."--BOOK JACKET.