Body Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating among College Women in China, South Korea, and the United States: Contrasting Predictions from Sociocultural and Feminist Theories

Body dissatisfaction and disordered eating were compared across groups of college women from China (n = 109), South Korea (n = 137), and the United States (n = 102). Based on cultural differences in the amount of exposure to Western appearance standards, particularly the thin-body ideal, sociocultur...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology of women quarterly 2007-12, Vol.31 (4), p.381-393
Main Authors: Jung, Jaehee, Forbes, Gordon B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acceptance
Body
Body image
China
College Students
Comparative Analysis
Cross cultural studies
Cultural Differences
Eating Disorders
Females
Feminism
Feminist psychology
Feminist theories
Foreign Countries
Gender
Gender studies
Human body
Individual Differences
Multidimensional Scaling
Prediction
Predictions
Psychological effects
Psychology
Self image
Social theory
Sociocultural factors
Sociocultural Patterns
Sociological theory
South Korea
Students
Theory
U.S.A
United States
Women
Womens studies
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Body dissatisfaction and disordered eating were compared across groups of college women from China (n = 109), South Korea (n = 137), and the United States (n = 102). Based on cultural differences in the amount of exposure to Western appearance standards, particularly the thin-body ideal, sociocultural theory (Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, & Tantleff-Dunn, 1999) would predict that body dissatisfaction and disordered eating would be highest in the U.S. sample and lowest in the Chinese sample. In contrast, based on the speed and pervasiveness of changes in women's roles, feminist theory (Bordo, 1993; Jeffreys, 2005) would predict that body dissatisfaction and disordered eating would be highest in the Korean sample and lowest in the U.S. sample. Multidimensional measures indicated the highest levels of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating in the Korean sample and the lowest levels in the U.S. sample, indicating that predictions derived from feminist theory were a better fit to the data than predictions derived from sociocultural theory. Results indicated that theoretical understandings of body dissatisfaction must recognize not only differences between Western and non-Western cultures, but also differences among non-Western cultures.
ISSN:0361-6843
1471-6402
DOI:10.1111/j.1471-6402.2007.00387.x