Whose Culture is it Anyway? Disentangling Culture and Eating Disorders – Part 3

The articles I’ve looked at so far in this series (Becker, in part 1, and Keel and Klump in part 2) give us some insight into the idea that the link between “Western” societies and eating disorders is more complex than a simple matter of media exposure. But, having read these studies, I was still left a bit wanting in terms of unpacking that black box of “culture” that gets tossed around in scholarly and popular literature. What, exactly, are we talking about when we talk culture in eating disorders?

Rebecca Lester, who is quite a prolific social anthropologist and who has written about eating disorder treatment systems in the USA and Mexico, makes the argument that “culture” is too often used as an umbrella term for semi-related but not-entirely-synonymous factors. This makes me wonder: is it possible that in latching on to the media side of Becker’s findings, for example, there has been too little attention paid to the other systemic factors that are indeed tied to culture- but not culture as it is generally attended to?…

You May Also Like:

1. Whose Culture is it Anyway? Disentangling Culture and Eating Disorders – Part 1
2. Whose Culture is it Anyway? Disentangling Culture and Eating Disorders – Part 2
3. Understanding Disordered Eating in Trans People