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Eating Disorders as Cultural Syndromes

The research described in the article by Keel and Klump (2003) looked at whether eating disorders in general, and anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) in particular, are cultural syndromes and the implications this has for conceptualizing a role of genetics in their etiology. The hypothesis for this research was that eating disorders represent a culture-bound syndromes, and the researchers wished to see the implications of such a finding on the conceptualization of a genetic basis for the disease. It has long been recognized that these eating disorders, AN and BN, are influence by culture and that they are more prevalent in industrialized and often Western cultures, and also that they are more common among females than males. This mirrors the cross-cultural importance of thinness for women.

Eating disorders appear to have become more prevalent among young women during the time that American icons of beauty have become thinner and women's magazines are filled with articles on weight loss (Keel and Klump, 2003. Eating disorder patients often have an intense preoccupation with weight in the early stages of their illness and the American Psychiatric Associations's (2000) diagnostic criteria for both AN and BN requires a disturbance of body image. Dieting and concerns with weight are at the center of the etiology of the behavioral theory of eating disorders.

More recently, eating disorder research has focused more on the genetic basis of these illnesses, suggesting they are inheritable (Keel and Klump, 2003). These theories deemphasize the role of culture in their etiology. Recent reports have indicated the finding of specific genetic loci conferring a susceptibility to eating disorders on people certain genes.

Because genetic research would benefit from knowing if AN and BN are prevalent outside of modern Western cultural influence, these authors first evaluated whether eating disorder rates have increas...

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Eating Disorders as Cultural Syndromes. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:54, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1704796.html