While eating disorders are not confined to any one culture or location they certainly appear to be more prevalent in Western culture. Diagnosing the cause of this phenomenon is not a simple task. There are a plethora of different factors that could potentially lead a person to develop an eating disorder. Most of these factors are external ones; factors that have more to do with the influence of society than any genetic or inherited predispositions. While there are exceptions to this, for the most part eating disorders are something that is developed over the years as opposed to something that one is born with.
The root of eating disorders in my opinion is social comparison. This is where it all starts before branching off into different categories; …show more content…
Even in places that are in the same country the culture around body image can be completely different. For example I spent a few years living in Dallas, Texas when I was younger and what I found was that obesity was quite common among Texans. Meanwhile in a place like Beverly Hills, Los Angeles there is very little obesity. Both of these places are in the same country but the bodies couldn’t be any more different. This is because, at least in my experience, people in the American south enjoy more fatty foods. Foods such as fried chicken and cornbread are ingrained into the culture dating back several generations. Beverly Hills on the other hand is populated with movie stars and supermodels who must maintain a certain body type for their …show more content…
From everything I’ve read on the issue it appears that eating disorders are more prevalent among the wealthy than the poor. As ironic as it is to consider that people with more money for food would eat less of it than people who don’t have much money for food I could see why that could be true. I’m a Psychology major here at York and one of the first concepts we learned about in Psyc 1010 is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist that stated that human beings have certain needs and before the needs at the top of the pyramid can be met the ones at the bottom must be met first. Physiological needs precede safety needs, which precede love/belonging needs, which precede self-esteem needs, which precede self-actualization. I believe this plays a part in why eating disorders are more widespread among the wealthy. The wealthy people have already had their physiological and safety needs met so they can afford to worry about superficial pursuits such as maintaining a certain body shape. When a person is living in poverty they are not afforded that luxury because their basic needs have not yet been met. If they don’t know where their next meal is coming from or where they’re going to sleep that night that’s going to take precedence over how they look in a bathing
The root of eating disorders in my opinion is social comparison. This is where it all starts before branching off into different categories; …show more content…
Even in places that are in the same country the culture around body image can be completely different. For example I spent a few years living in Dallas, Texas when I was younger and what I found was that obesity was quite common among Texans. Meanwhile in a place like Beverly Hills, Los Angeles there is very little obesity. Both of these places are in the same country but the bodies couldn’t be any more different. This is because, at least in my experience, people in the American south enjoy more fatty foods. Foods such as fried chicken and cornbread are ingrained into the culture dating back several generations. Beverly Hills on the other hand is populated with movie stars and supermodels who must maintain a certain body type for their …show more content…
From everything I’ve read on the issue it appears that eating disorders are more prevalent among the wealthy than the poor. As ironic as it is to consider that people with more money for food would eat less of it than people who don’t have much money for food I could see why that could be true. I’m a Psychology major here at York and one of the first concepts we learned about in Psyc 1010 is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist that stated that human beings have certain needs and before the needs at the top of the pyramid can be met the ones at the bottom must be met first. Physiological needs precede safety needs, which precede love/belonging needs, which precede self-esteem needs, which precede self-actualization. I believe this plays a part in why eating disorders are more widespread among the wealthy. The wealthy people have already had their physiological and safety needs met so they can afford to worry about superficial pursuits such as maintaining a certain body shape. When a person is living in poverty they are not afforded that luxury because their basic needs have not yet been met. If they don’t know where their next meal is coming from or where they’re going to sleep that night that’s going to take precedence over how they look in a bathing