White Bias in Research

In their research, Powell and Kahn asked why "white women are more prone to eating disorders than black women". They found that white women were interested in a much thinner body size than black women and expressed more concern about weight and dieting. They concluded that black culture is more accepting of large size than white culture and that the black subgroup places less emphasis on thinness. Henriques, Calhoun and Cann reported in the Journal of Social Psychology that black women show "less problematic eating behaviors and less dietary restraint". Crago, Shisslak, and Estes reported that although the black women they studied in the United States were heavier than Caucasian women, they were less dissatisfied with their weight, and had fewer weight concerns and a more positive self-image. In contrast to many white women they said, black women perceive themselves to be thinner than they actually are.

These findings seem to suggest that black women are somehow more healthy and balanced abut their eating than their white counterparts,. They implicitly link problematic eating behaviors to dietary restriction. And for unknown reasons these studies do not pick up the widespread weight concerns of women of color. At the same time, however, some of these studies acknowledge that obesity and obesity related health problems are significant among black women across all socio-economic classes. How are we to make sense of this research? Power, it is said, is the ability to define reality. In the field of eating disorders, the powers that be, mainly white researchers studying white subjects, have led to defining eating disorders narrowly as anorexia and bulimia. Given this narrow definition of eating disorders, the recent research on black women and other women of color provides evidence of some foggy conceptualizations. Powell et.al. for example, begin with the assumption that black women are less prone to eating disorders and then focus on thinness as the sole template of disturbed weight and body image. In one part of their paper, Crago et al. state that eating disorders are higher among well educated minority groups, but by naming restriction, vomiting and bingeing, they make clear that they are defining eating disorders solely in terms of anorexia and bulimia. The research by Crago does acknowledge in the end, however, that "Being overweight is a risk factor for eating disorders among minority women...".

This last statement begins to bring us closer to a necessary, more inclusive definition of eating disorders. As a research by Wilfley, Schreiber, Pike, Streigel-Moore, Wright and Rodin reveals, there is more eating pathology among black women than previously thought.

By: Patricia Romney Ph.D