Twenty four million of today’s U.S. citizens suffer from some form of an eating disorder. An eating disorder is defined as an unhealthy relationship between food and weight that interferes with many areas of one’s life. Eating disorders account for the majority of all metal health related deaths.  Sociologists study the effects of social forces upon this illness.

There are three theoretical models that sociologists attribute to the explanation and treatment of eating disorders. The Biomedical Model focuses on only the biological factors that affected the sufferer‘s everyday life, searching purely for an organic cause. The faults of this model are failing to recognize socioeconomic standing, psychological and environmental factors. The Psychological Model focuses on a possible psychological origin of the eating disorder. This model fails to address the vast expanse of gender disparity, the social patterns and high incidence rate of eating disorders. Lastly, the Cultural Model explains how a powerful cultural influence can affect eating disorders. Some cultures believe thinness to be attributed to beauty. This model fails to account for why people exposed to the same influence, do not acquire an eating disorder, but does account for the gender gap.

Between one third and two thirds of women who have been sexually assaulted in so way, whether it be a family member or a stranger. When a person is abused, troubles are sure to ensue. Factors stemming from abuse consist of low self-esteem, feelings of inadequacy, lack of control, depression, anxiety, and difficulties expressing emotions. Sociologists have proven that abuse undergone as a child may indirectly affect psychological processes that can predispose children to developing problems in the developmental stages of food pathology, causing a food aversion or need for food. Sexual abuse is the most common trauma associated with the origins of eating disorders.  The most common form of eating disorders is binging. Binging helps to aestheticize their feelings of loneliness, anxiety, blocking painful feelings. Some people are not even conscious while binging, showing how deeply rooted the disorder is. Abuse most commonly causes a sense of no control over one’s own life.  Women who have bulimia and extensive dieting believe they were abused because of their weight, thinking that if they were smaller, thinner, they would have never been hurt. The disorder is partyl due to the guilt and shame they feel for the occasions they were abused.  Some say when dieting there is a split between body and soul; this is to protect the soul from the pain the body has caused. Bulimia and dieting are a person’s logical response to attempt to protect oneself by being a size and shape they do not think will be vulnerable to assault.

Many social forces could have potentially helped cause an eating disorder, racial classification and socioeconomic standing, are two of the major players. Studies have shown that the added pressures of racism have attributed to the need to be accepted, the need to be thin. Eating disorder victims feel they have no control over their lives so they obsess over the one thing they can control, their weight. Many people, back in the day and even today believed lighter skin was more beautiful causing them to strive to be perfect in any other way they can. Socioeconomic standing has inflicted upon society a weight limit for each given class. Studies show a higher rate of eating disorder associated with a higher class standing. Society believes that the women and men of the middle or upper class range should be more elegant, thinner. Whereas, if you are from a working class family, you are supposed to be plump to prove to everybody that the family was doing okay economically.

By Casey