ISRN Preventive Medicine
Volume 2013 (2013), Article ID 319701, 8 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.5402/2013/319701
Media and Cultural Influences in African-American Girls’ Eating Disorder Risk
Department of Counseling, School, and Educational Psychology, Graduate School of Education, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14620, USA
Received 21 November 2012; Accepted 3 January 2013
Academic Editors: U. Abdel-Motal and V. Usonis
Copyright © 2013 Lakaii A. Jones and Catherine Cook-Cottone. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Objective. To investigate media and cultural influences in eating disorder development in African-American adolescent females. Method. Fifty-seven participants were recruited through churches and community organizations to complete a questionnaire. Results. Mainstream sociocultural identification was associated with more eating disorder behavior in African-American females; cultural ethnic identification was not significantly associated with eating disorder behavior in African-American females, mainstream sociocultural identification, cultural ethnic identification, and body dissatisfaction significantly predicted eating disorder behavior; and cultural ethnic identification was positively correlated with mainstream sociocultural identification. This study provides support for the importance of eating disorder prevention interventions that focus specifically on African-American girls.