Asian American women demonstrate higher rates of disordered eating than other women of color and comparable rates to European American women. Research suggests that leading sociocultural predictors, namely, pressures for thinness and thin-ideal internalization, are predictive of disordered eating in Asian American women; however, no known studies have tested the intersection of sociocultural and culture-specific variables (e.g., ethnic identity, biculturalism, and acculturative stress) to further elucidate disordered eating risk in this vulnerable, understudied group. Accordingly, this project used path analysis to simultaneously examine the role of sociocultural and culture-specific effects on disordered eating in Asian American college women (N = 430). Self-report measures assessing disordered eating, sociocultural (pressures for thinness, thin-ideal internalization), and culture-specific (ethnic identity, biculturalism, acculturative stress) variables revealed that a number of sociocultural and culture-specific factors are predictive of disordered eating. Consistent with prior research, heightened perceived pressures for thinness and thin-ideal internalization were predictive of disordered eating, and thin-ideal internalization partially mediated the relationship between pressures for thinness and disordered eating. Acculturative stress predicted disordered eating and fully accounted for the inverse relationship between biculturalism and disordered eating. Overall, findings highlighted the salience of sociocultural predictors for disordered eating in Asian American women and identified biculturalism and acculturative stress as culture-specific contributors that may uniquely impact vulnerability to disordered eating in Asian American women. Thus, the combined consideration of sociocultural and culture-specific factors may be important in disordered eating research and in the development of individualized treatment plans for Asian American women.

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A large body of research suggests that thin-ideal internalization is a robust predictor of eating pathology in women and, to some degree, in men. Recent research is exploring the relationships between thin-ideal internalization and culture-specific factors that may be salient to women and men who live in the US but are marginalized based on racial or ethnic background, such as acculturation. This systematic review summarizes published articles examining the relationships among thin-ideal internalization, acculturation-related constructs (including assimilation, marginalization, biculturalism, and acculturative stress), and eating pathology in US adults. Following the PRISMA method, 15 empirical studies met inclusion criteria. Although existing literature was sparse and conflicting in large part due to heterogeneity in acculturation measures, results yielded some support for positive correlational relationships between acculturative stress, thin-ideal internalization, and eating pathology for both men and women (in 4 out of 5 relevant studies). Research on other aspects of acculturation (eg, integration, assimilation) is mixed, with some existing research suggesting a positive relationship and other research finding no statistically significant relationship. Future research would particularly benefit from a gold-standard, multidimensional transcultural measure of acculturation to examine how the acculturation process relates to thin-ideal internalization and eating pathology in ethnic and racial minorities in the US.

BackgroundExtant research suggests that disordered eating is common in college women and is associated with decreased quality of life. The Eating Disorder Quality of Life Scale (EDQLS) examines impairment to disordered eating-related quality of life, but has not been validated in college women. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to examine the reliability, validity, and factor structure of the EDQLS in a diverse sample of 971 college women.MethodStudents from a large United States university completed questionnaires examining disordered eating and the EDQLS online.ResultsThe EDQLS demonstrated excellent internal consistency and good convergent validity with the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDEQ). Contrary to the original 12-domain design of the EDQLS, principal component analyses suggested five factors that mapped onto the following constructs: (1) Positive Emotionality; (2) Body/Weight Dissatisfaction; (3) Disordered Eating Behaviors; (4) Negative Emotionality; and (5) Social Engagement. However, 15 of the 40 items loaded onto multiple factors.ConclusionsTotal scores on the EDQLS are reliable and valid when used with diverse samples of college women, but some revisions are needed to create subscales than can justifiably be used in clinical practice.