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This study examines ethnic differences in eating attitudes and behaviors among Black and White college students. Additionally, the study tests whether Black acculturation is associated with lowered risk of eating disturbances. Seventy-six participants (65.8% Black and 34.2% White) were sampled at the same university. Results showed that Black students were more satisfied with their bodies and desired a larger body size on average than White students. Moreover, Blacks tended to desire the body size they considered healthy, whereas Whites desired a smaller body size than what they considered healthy. Although Black participants clearly scored higher in Black acculturation, the relationship between acculturation and eating attitudes failed to emerge. These results support a body of literature that shows ethnic differences in eating disturbances but suggest that acculturation may not fully explain the observed differences.
Research shows that Black and White participants have different views concerning weight and body image. For example, Black women tend to be heavier (Chandler & Abood, 1997; DiGioacchino, Sargent, & Topping, 2001; Pike, Dohm, Striegel-Moore, Wilfley, & Fairburn, 2001), yet are more satisfied with their weight (Harris, Walters, & Waschull, 1991; Parker, Nichter, Nichter, Vuckovic, Sims, & Ritenbaugh, 1995; Rucker & Cash, 1992) and diet and exercise less (Abrams, Allen, & Gray, 1993; Henriques, Calhoun, & Cann, 1996) than White women. In one study (Nielson, 2000) of undergraduate students nearly all (90%) of the Black women, but less than half (45%) of White women, reported being "very satisfied" with their weight. Predictably, fewer Black participants (9%), compared to White participants (25%), reported symptoms of a past or present eating disorder. Few studies have explored eating disturbances among Black and White men, perhaps due to the findings that men rarely report pathological eating attitudes (Chandler, Abood, Lee, Cleveland, & Daly, 1994; Gray, Ford, & Kelly, 1987; Pyle, Mitchell, Eckert, Halvorson, Neuman, & Goff, 1983). However, available research indicates that differences between Black and White men may parallel those among Black and White women, with White men indicating more body dissatisfaction (Smith, Thomson, Raczynski, & Hilner, 1999) than Black men.
Several explanations have been developed to account for the observed ethnic differences in eating attitudes and body satisfaction. The explanations generally fall into two categories: confounding effects models (Arriaza & Mann, 2001) and...