A social-psychological study of eating and body problems among women
This study addresses eating and body problems among women. It has three central aims. Firstly, it is a prevalence study of the attitudes and behaviours associated with the eating disorders of anorexia nervosa and bulimia, among a sample of female undergraduate students. Secondly, it serves as a study of the nature of problems associated with eating and body affect among this community of women, with a particular focus on those women who consider themselves to have an eating problem. Thirdly, it has a theoretical aim to address the issue of the role of culture, in particular socially constructed femininity, within the understanding of eating/body problems, ranging from "normal" women's relationships to their body and eating to the severe disorders of anorexia nervosa and bulimia. The theoretical project within this study involves a critical review of theories which are pertinent to an understanding of the role of culture and femininity, both from within and outside of eating disorder literature. This review, together with empirical evidence from prevalence studies, highlights the importance of "normal" women's experiences with their body and eating and the ideological prescriptions in which these occur, within the understanding of eating/body problems. The mainstream view of eating disorders as abnormalities, apart from the "normal", is challenged in this way. The need for a theory which can articulate the complex psychical acquisition of cultural femininity, which does not reduce this process to either social or asocial determinants alone, is argued.
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