Eating Attitudes of Women Living With a Vision Impairment

Abstract

Internalization of cultural standards of attractiveness and subscription to gender-based discourses are significant predictors of disordered eating attitudes in fully sighted women. Yet, whether these variables predict the disordered eating attitudes of women who are legally blind is underexplored. In the current study, we examined how internalization of White European cultural standards of attractiveness and subscription to gender-based discourses (body surveillance and self-silencing) and body shame predicted the disordered eating attitudes of 80, primarily White, heterosexual, Australian women who are legally blind. Participants completed an online survey comprising existing validated measures of all variables. A path analysis was performed using the Hayes PROCESS approach. As predicted, in women living with vision impairment, body surveillance, self-silencing, and shame fully mediated the relation between internalization of cultural standards of attractiveness and disordered eating attitudes. Results showed that in much the same way as sighted women, women living with vision impairment are susceptible to internalizing harmful messages related to socio-cultural standards of attractiveness. We provide further support for including subscription to gender-based discourses in research on women’s body-image disturbances. Data will be available for other researchers from the author via email. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pwq/suppl/index

Sociocultural Pressures, Internalization, and Body Esteem in Congenitally Blind, Late-Blind, and Sighted Men and Women

“…In addition, they reported enhanced perceived pressure to conform to these ideals, as well as stronger internalization, which was unobserved in blind individuals. Late-blind women showed comparable levels of internalization of general and athletic body ideals typically conveyed through the media, suggesting that previous visual experience is sufficient to prime metric body representations (Longo & Haggard, 2012) that may serve at a level of social comparison (Longo & Haggard, 2012; Nava et al, 2021; Page & Papps, 2018). It further highlights the idea that females living with vision impairment are as predisposed to internalizing unhealthy ideals as sighted females.…”

“…Previous research showed that congenitally blind women, who are unable to access visual images of body ideals, have higher body satisfaction than sighted women, implying that limited exposure to visual media may offer some protection from developing concerns around body image (Ashikali & Dittmar, 2012;Baker et al, 1998;Gebauer et al, 2019). Other findings suggest that women with congenital and adventitious blindness may be as prone to internalizing messages on sociocultural idealizations as sighted women (Page & Papps, 2018;Simeunovic Ostojic & Hansen, 2013), confirming that the negative effect of social comparison does not require visual input (Gaudio et al, 2014;Touyz et al, 1988) and may be enhanced through other psychosocial factors (Simeunovic Ostojic & Hansen, 2013). Hence, the notion that restricted access to visual beauty idealizations results in decreased internalization of unhealthy messages and consequently higher body satisfaction is undoubtedly in question.…”