Effects of Acculturation of Eating Disorder Prevalence Across Generations of Asian American Immigrants

The prevalence of eating disorders in the United States is steadily rising and is attributed to the various changes in lifestyle and diet in the past two decades. This research paper analyzes the extent that acculturation, the absorption of one dominant culture over another, impacts the rate of eating disorders in the United States and whether the variable is significant. Researchers investigated various ethnic and cultural variables that may influence the susceptibility to eating disorders of immigrants and their children Specifically, the study analyzes the extended exposure to American cultural standards of physical attractiveness, generally differing from their own. The data collected utilized survey data collected amongst a randomly sampled first and second-generation Asian-American population in the United States. The study participants were screened using the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) in addition to an Acculturation Index, specifically the General Ethnicity Questionnaire (GEQ). Researchers expected to observe a positive correlation between the extent of acculturation and the prevalence of eating disorders amongst the sample population, in this case, being first and second-generation Asian Americans residing in the United States. The results disproved this hypothesis. By analyzing 131 responses from around the United States, researchers found that acculturation had no significant correlation to eating disorder prevalence in the study group. Significant trends were found between levels of acculturation in each generation, second-generation Asian Americans being significantly more acculturated. Second-generation immigrants, however, had lower global EDE-Q scores compared to their first-generation counterparts.