Sociology 8th Edition by Margaret Andersen ,Howard Taylor ,Kim Logio

Exercise 1

Eating Disorders: Gender, Race, and the Body
research Question: "A culture of thinness," "the tyranny of slenderness," "the beauty myth": These are terms used to describe the obsession with weight and body image that permeates the dominant culture, especially for girls and women. Just glance at the covers of popular magazines for women and girls and you will very likely find article after article promoting new diet gimmicks, each bundled with a promise that you will lose pounds in a few days if you only have the proper discipline or use the right products. Moreover, the models on the covers of such magazines are likely to be thin, often dangerously so because being too thin causes serious health problems. Do these body ideals affect all women equally?
Too much conformity to gender roles can be harmful to your health. such is the case of anorexic women who starve themselves attempting to meet cultural standards of thinness.
research Method: Meg Lovejoy wanted to know if the drive for thinness is unique to White women and how gendered images of the body might differ for African American and White women in the United States. Her research is based on reviewing the existing research literature on eating disorders, which has generally concluded that, compared with White women, Black women are less likely to develop eating disorders.
Research results: Black women are less likely than White women to engage in excessive dieting and are less fearful of fat, although they are more likely to be obese and experience compulsive overeating. White women, on the other hand, tend to be very dissatisfied with their body size and overall appearance, with an increasing number engaging in obsessive dieting. Black and White women also tend to distort their own weight in opposite directions: White women are more likely to overestimate their own weight (that is, saying they are fat when they are not); Black women are more likely to underestimate their weight (saying they are average when they are overweight by medical standards). Why?
Conclusions and Implications: Lovejoy concludes that you cannot understand eating disorders without knowing the different stigmas attached to Black and White women in society. She suggests that Black women develop alternative standards for valuing their appearance as a way of resisting mainstream, Eurocentric standards. Black women who do so are then less susceptible to the controlling and damaging influence of the institutions that promote the ideal of thinness as feminine beauty. On the other hand, the vulnerability that Black women experience in society can foster mental health problems that are manifested in overeating. Eating disorders for Black women can also stem from the traumas that result from racism, especially when combined with sexism and other forms of oppression.
Lovejoy and others who have examined this issue conclude that eating disorders must be understood in the context of social structures-gender, race, class, and ethnicity-that affect all women, although in different ways. The cultural meanings associated with bodies differ for different groups in society but are deeply linked to our concepts of ourselves and the basic behaviors-like eating-that we otherwise think of as "natural."
Questions to Consider
Pay attention to the music and visual images in popular culture and ask yourself what cultural messages are being sent to different race and gender groups. What messages are being conveyed about appropriate appearance? How do they affect people's body image and their selfesteem?