Eating concerns in East Asian immigrants: relationships between acculturation, self-construal, ethnic identity, gender, psychological functioning and eating concerns.

OBJECTIVE

Eating concerns in East Asian immigrants were assessed and their association with acculturation status, self-construal, ethnic identity, gender and psychological functioning was examined.

METHOD

One-hundred and fifty non-clinical East Asian immigrants (75 males, 75 females) were administered a battery of psychometrically established measures with satisfactory reliability and validity.

RESULTS

Females were more prone to eating concerns and these were positively related to symptoms of psychological distress. Acculturation, self-construal, ethnic identity and psychological functioning were not related to desire to be thinner, feeling guilt after eating, fear of being overweight nor preoccupation with the thought of having fat on one's body. Collective self-esteem and symptoms of psychological distress were positively related to feeling discomfort after eating sweets, while interdependent self-construal and assimilation were negatively related.

DISCUSSION

Culturally relevant variables, namely acculturation, self-construal and ethnic identity, were related to only certain facets of eating concerns. The findings suggest the importance of assessing discrete, psychologically-relevant facets of culture rather than more global constructs such as westernization when examining eating concerns in immigrant populations.