Conjured Perceptions: Black Women and Eating Disorders

"Over the years, researchers have seen a rise in the number of Black women suffering from eating disorders. In one survey study of 6,504 adolescent participants (Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites), the results showed that all the youth reported losing weight at similar rates (32.7%, 31.9%, 36.1%, and 34.9% respectively). Finding exact statistics on the prevalence of eating disorders on Black women are unavailable, due to the existence of the underlying notion that eating disorders are a White woman's disease and/or Black women not wanting to be honest about their eating. Contrary to this, there is evidence that eating disorders among Black women are on the rise. One of the hypotheses for this belief is due to ideals of body images. Similarly to Whites. Black women suffering from eating disorders can be influenced by socioeconomic status, environment, and genetic factors.

Truth be told, I suffered from an eating disorder in high school. It started out with me trying to be healthy, but that soon dwindled. I became involved in gymnastics, cheerleading, and track, and those sports helped me transition into having an eating disorder. I tried to hide it while going to the Black public school, as the study suggested. I figured it was a White girl disease, and I didn't want anyone to know. During lunch I would just say, "I'm not hungry," and hang out in the cafeteria with my friends...drinking juices to keep sugar in my body, and eating peanut butter crackers whenever I felt faint. When I transferred to the White, private school, I soon found out I wasn't the only one with an eating disorder. We all knew about each others eating habits...even the Black girls knew, for we were all doing it together and tracking our weight, happily. We would go on water and juice diets for weeks sometimes, in conjunction to running the cross country trail everyday and spending hours in the gym during the week. That went on for the duration of my high school career. In college, the eating disorder started to become non existent to me due, but early on (freshman year), I found out so many of my peers were suffering from eating disorders (at Spellman...an all Black, female institution of higher learning). This was very surprising to me because I would have never thought that so many Black women were involved in this.

Eating disorders, like suicide and etc., are another quietly kept secret of things we suffer from. Don't be so quick to assume just because someone is of a certain race that they are oblivious to such ailments. Also, don't think just because someone isn't stick thin that they couldn't be suffering from an eating disorder. Women suffering from this look different, yet are suffering from the same thing."

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