Disordered eating attitudes and body image perceptions among Anglo-American and Hispanic-American women

This study investigated cultural differences between actual and ideal body images, body esteem, and eating attitudes and behaviors. Fifty Anglo-American women and fifty Hispanic-American women completed measures pertaining to their demographic information, socioeconomic status, depressed mood, eating attitudes and behaviors, body image, body esteem, ascription of responsibility, and level of acculturation. Several differences between the two groups of women were significant, such as: Hispanic-American women showed greater body esteem, and Hispanic-American women ascribed to more traditional and diffused locus of responsibility than Anglo-American women. No significant cultural differences were found in eating disordered attitudes or behavior between the two groups. Exploratory analyses were also conducted to investigate differences within the Hispanic-American group in terms of ethnic ancestry and country of origin.