Have you ever experienced or observed the struggle a person faces when dealing with weight issues? For many, weight gain and loss is similar to a rollercoaster ride at an amusement park. The ride excels an individual from one extreme to another, struggling to achieve and maintain thinness, which is acknowledged as beauty and success, through the eyes of our society.

Understanding eating disorders, through research, is critical to learning the attributes that contribute to the design of the struggle. Three theoretical models used to explain and treat eating disorders are the (1) biomedical model, (2) psychological model, and (3) the feminist model. The biomedical model presents “scientific research about the possible physiological causes of eating problems and the physiological dangers of purging and starvation”. Critical review of the biomedical model, argues that it “ignores many social, historical and cultural factors that influence women’s eating patterns”. The psychological model exemplifies eating disorders as “multidimensional disorders” which are shaped by “biological, psychological and cultural factors”, constructive “in its exploration of effective therapeutic treatments”. However, critical review of the psychological model argues that, “like the biomedical model, tends to neglect women of color, lesbians and working-class women”. In addition, the third theoretical model is the feminist model, which “asserts that eating problems are gendered”. This model “explains why the vast majority of people with eating problems are women, how gender socialization and sexism may relate to eating problems, and how masculine models of psychological development have shaped theoretical interpretations”. This model proposes that “thinness is a culturally, socially, and economically enforced requirement for female beauty”. A critical review of the feminist theoretical model argues “bias in research has consequences for women of color”. This statement is supported by Thomas Silber who “asserts that many well-trained professionals have either misdiagnosed or delayed their diagnoses of eating problems among African Americans,” which as lead to “be more severe due to extended processes of starvation prior to intervention”. Research that recognizes African America women, Latinas, and lesbians in effort to “seek to understand how race, class, gender, nationality, and sexuality inform women’s experiences and influence theory production”.

Furthermore, there is an association between sexual abuse and eating disorders, linking sexual abuse “to the origins of their eating problems”. Some women have stated that they resort to binging to help “anesthetize their feelings” while others sedate themselves through eating to “alleviate anxiety and combat loneliness”. Thompson argues that eating disorders are survival strategies, exemplifying food as a resource that provides comfort and security to an array of issues including sexism, heterosexism, and abuse.

Moreover, racism and class standings contribute to eating disorders. For example, “an African American woman, remembered when her white grandmother telling her that she would never be as pretty as her cousins because they were light skinned”. In addition, her grandmother objected to her weight” leading Joselyn to “think that even though she could not change her skin color, she could at least try to be thin”. Class standing than impacted Joselyn’s self-concept. For example, when her father’s business began to prosper, their immediate social circle of people and standards also changed. The “class expectations that their parents experienced exacerbated standards about weight that they inflicted on their daughters”.

In conclusion, Thompson maintains that women’s eating problems are a response to poverty, racism, acculturation, and social class inequality. We might explain the low rates of eating disorders among Black, ethnic, and low-income men as they may resort to other obstructive avenues of behavior, in which they dominate the higher percentage. We often use first impressions of people, especially appearance, to form a theory about who that person is. However, we must remember how important it is to judge a person based on their character, and personality while remaining conscious of not falling into the realm of “judging a book by its cover”.

BY JESSICA