Gender Influences On Eating Disorders

Body weight has long been a marker of social status. Since eating disorders affect millions of people, primarily women, a structural problem is implicated. We usually consider a person’s eating disorder to be a personal trouble that stems from a lack of control, low self-esteem, or another personal problem. This explanation is okay as far as it goes, but it does not help us understand why so many people have the personal problems that lead to eating disorders. Perhaps more important, this belief also neglects the larger social and cultural forces that help explain such disorders.
Most Americans with eating disorders are women. This gender difference forces us to ask what is about being a woman in American society that makes eating disorders