Similarities and differences between Caucasian and African American college women on eating and dieting expectancies, bulimic symptoms, dietary restraint, and disinhibition.

Full Abstract

OBJECTIVE:
To clarify race differences in eating disorder risk factors and symptoms, by comparing Caucasian and African American samples on the factor structures, intercorrelations, and mean levels of endorsement on a set of risk and symptom measures.

METHOD:
A sample of 300 Caucasian and 200 African American undergraduates completed measures of eating and thinness/dieting expectancies, the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ), and the BULIT.

RESULTS:
The factor structures of each measure were invariant across race. Intercorrelations among the measures generally did not differ across race. On the three expectancy measures predictive of symptomatology, two of three scales of the TFEQ, and the BULIT, African American women had lower mean scores than Caucasian women. Socioeconomic status did not account for the results:
in this sample, it was unrelated to race and correlated with only 1 of 20 measures.

DISCUSSION:
The factor-based meaning of these measures appears to be consistent across race. The measures correlate similarly across race, suggesting that the risk process may be similar for both races, but African American women endorsed significantly fewer risk factors and fewer symptoms.Copyright 2002 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Atlas, Jana G (JG); Smith, Gregory T (GT); Hohlstein, Leigh Anne (LA); McCarthy, Denis M (DM); Kroll, Larry S (LS);

Affiliation: Division of School Psychology, Alfred University, Alfred, New York, USA.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article

Journal: The International journal of eating disorders (Int J Eat Disord), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Nov; vol 32 (issue 3) : pp 326-34

Dates: Created 2002/09/04; Completed 2002/10/09; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12210647, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

This article has not been indexed for related articles as yet, however you can still use the live related article search links below.

See 100+ related articles.