Although conditions such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa often are associated with white females, the eating disorder ratio is as prevalent among African-American women as white women, according to researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Eating disorders affect millions of Americans each year, more than 90 percent of those who are adolescent and young adult woman, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Studies have also shown that men as well as other ethnicities are at risk.
"Historically African culture is protected by having more appreciation for female shape," said Mary Anne Knapp, a therapist at the Center for Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). "But in fact, as there are more African-American models, they are more at risk."
Knapp said the same is also true for Hispanic women, historically protected by a cultural appreciation of the curvy female shape and increasingly affected by the western beauty ideal. Health professionals attribute eating disorders to a number of causes, Knapp explained,
"It's complicated," she said. "The main thing is that for each person there are individual risk factors. The important thing to do in treatment is to look at the connection" between the disorder and possible underlying causes to the disorder such as depression, abuse and a negative body image.
Eating disorders can be potentially life threatening if untreated, which Knapp says African-Americans might find especially difficult to begin as "there is still some stigma attached to what is assumed to be a white disease."
Eating disorders are illnesses associated with disturbances in eating behavior, severe body image distortion and an obsession with weight.
Sufferers are terrified of gaining weight and continue to diet or binge and purge even after their mental and physical health deteriorates.
The National Eating Disorder Screening Program considers anorexia nervosa as characterized by dramatic reduction of calorie intake, in which the person diets to the point of self-starvation.
Bulimia is generally characterized by cycles of binge eating followed by attempts to purge already eaten food -- via vomiting, taking laxatives or exercising too much. According to the National Eating Disorder Screening Program, 15 percent of all young women have substantially disordered eating behaviors.
