Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA.
Eat Behav. 2013 Aug;14(3):269-73. doi: 10.1016/j.eatbeh.2013.03.005. Epub 2013 Apr 2.
Despite stereotypes to the contrary, women of diverse racial backgrounds, including Black women, experience disordered eating symptoms. While there has been an increase in research comparing disordered eating symptoms across ethnic groups, there remains a dearth of research on the mechanisms of action underlying the development of these symptoms in non-White populations. Thinness expectancies prospectively predict disordered eating symptoms in adolescent girls, but the majority of research on expectancies has been conducted with White samples. Restraint, or self-initiated attempts to restrict food intake, may be precipitated by cognitive factors such as thinness expectancies. In the current study, we followed a sample of Black and White women over one semester of college to assess the influence of thinness expectancies and ethnic identity on restraint. Our sample consisted of 193 college women (93 Black women). We found that White women experienced restraint at higher levels than Black women, but both Black and White women experienced an increase in restraint across the first semester in college. The endorsement of thinness expectancies added significant incremental variance to the prediction of restraint over time, when baseline restraint was included in the model. These effects were not moderated by ethnicity nor ethnic identity. This study adds to the scarce literature on phenomenology of disordered eating in Black women.
尽管存在刻板印象，但不同种族背景的女性，包括黑人女性，都经历过饮食失调症状。尽管已经有越来越多的研究比较了不同种族群体的饮食失调症状，但在非白人人群中，这些症状发展的作用机制的研究仍然很少。瘦期待能预测青少年女孩的饮食失调症状，但大多数关于期望的研究都是在白人样本中进行的。抑制，或自我发起的限制食物摄入的尝试，可能是由瘦期待等认知因素引发的。在本研究中，我们对一组黑人女性和白人女性进行了为期一学期的跟踪调查，以评估瘦期待和族裔认同对抑制的影响。我们的样本包括 193 名女大学生（93 名黑人女性）。我们发现，白人女性的抑制程度高于黑人女性，但无论是黑人女性还是白人女性，在大学的第一个学期里，抑制程度都有所增加。在包括基线抑制的模型中，瘦期待的认可对时间上的抑制预测增加了显著的增量方差。这些影响不受种族或族裔认同的影响。这项研究增加了关于黑人女性饮食失调现象学的稀缺文献。
