Eating Disorders - Research Paper Example

However, the same study done in 2008 showed that eating disorders had become an affair for all: men and women, the rich and the poor, blacks and whites. This paper explores the various aspects of the globalization of eating disorders, factors favoring the globalization and whether at all there is a possibility of managing this trend. Eating disorders have existed for a long time in history, earlier than the 19th Century where people engaged in self-starvation (Bruch 89). However, as time goes by, the rate of the prevalence of the disorders has risen and varied in various demographics.

Bruch in his article ‘The Golden Cage’ explains Anorexia Nervosa as disorder for teenage girls mostly from financially stable families. This notion has been disagreed upon as research by the American Psychiatry Association has shown that males, middle-aged and aging people, African-Americans and low-class population have reported cases of eating disorders. Contrary to the earlier notion, eating disorders are an emerging problem for the entire female fraternity in the world. In the African society, for instance, the ideal woman traditionally was voluptuous and fat.

Thin women were seen as a sign of poverty, sickness or even death. As Frank Osodi points out in the ‘’Golden Cage’, African girls have hips, bums and are fleshy. For years, this was sustained as the optimal standard of measuring beauty among women in Africa. Conversely, in United States, thinness was associated with social status and as an evidence of moral virtue (Raisanen and Hunt 57). Fatness is associated with low status, laziness and gluttony. This contemporary definition of beauty has spread across the globe changing even the Africans beliefs on beauty.

African women have become keener about their body shape and size. Practices such as cosmetic surgery, exercise, and strict dieting regimes have been adopted with the aim of controlling weight and becoming slender. Globally, being overweight is