David Garner and his colleagues (1980) collected data on the height, weight and age of contestants in the Miss America beauty pageant from 1959 to 1978. After controlling for height differences, a mean decline in weight of 0.28 pounds per year was found for contestants; moreover, the mean decline for the winner was 0.37 pounds per year. They also found similar results when they examined the measurements of Playboy centerfold models. In addition, during that time there was an increase in the number of dieting articles in women’s magazines:
- 1960’s: average of 16 articles per year
- 1970’s: average of 23 per year
- Now there are magazines devoted entirely to dieting
More evidence that anorexia is caused by cultural factors comes from the observation that people from subcultures where thinness is especially valued (e.g., models, dancers and actors) are more concerned with weight (Morris et al., 1989). A study by Garner and Garfinkel (1980) found that 7% of dancers and 7% of fashion modeling students suffered from anorexia nervosa, whereas there were no cases in control group of 81 female university students.
Evaluation of the Sociocultural Explanation
A strength of the Sociocultural view is that it explains why there are differences in the prevalence rates between ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Margo (1985), for example found that white American women of higher socio-economic status expressed more concern about thinness and dieting than those of lower socioeconomic status and African-American women. However, these participants did not have eating disorders, so there is a difficulty in extrapolating to the clinical Syndrome. It would be unwise to see eating disorders as equivalent to being concerned about weight. Nevertheless, the emphasis on thinness has now reached all ethnic and socio-economic groups and there has been a corresponding increase in the prevalence of eating disorders (Rosen et al, 1991).
Sociocultural theories also explain the gender gap in eating disorders. Until recently, the emphasis on appearance has applied mostly to women (Nichter & Nichter, 1991), which explains why 90-95% of anorexia sufferers are female. Also, men are subjected to different sociocultural pressures when it comes to appearance.
A survey of male American college students found that the majority selected “muscular, strong, and broad shoulders” as the ideal body type (Kearney-Cooke & Steichen-Asch, 1990). Although this may mean that eating disorders are less prevalent in males, other problems such as steroid abuse and excessive weightlifting are more prevalent (Mickalide, 1990). In addition, males are more likely to exercise to lose weight, whereas females are more likely to diet (Mickalide, 1990).
A difficulty with the socio-cultural approach is that males with eating disorders tend to aspire to a “lean, toned and thin” shape, similar to the ideal female body shape, rather than the broad shouldered muscular shape that men usually aspire to (Kearney-Cooke & Steichen-Asch, 1990). It is hard to see how cultural pressures would lead to this. Nevertheless, males with the disorder are more likely to report having been teased about their weight (Kearney-Cooke & Steichen-Asch, 1990) and males with anorexia tend to be overweight when they start losing weight, while females are usually of normal weight (but feel overweight).
