Lack of Relation between Culture and Anorexia Nervosa — Results of an Incidence Study on Curaçao

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Anorexia nervosa is considered to be a Western-culture–bound syndrome occurring mainly in young, white women. In Western culture, the preoccupation with thinness and sociocultural pressures to diet have been regarded as etiologic factors in the pathogenesis of anorexia nervosa.1 It is thought to be very rare outside the Western world and in black women in industrialized countries.2 Therefore, we hypothesized that we would find no or very few cases of anorexia nervosa in a population-based study on the Caribbean island of Curaçao, where overweight is socially acceptable.3 The mean body-mass index (the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) for women in Curaçao is similar to that of black women and higher than that of white women in the United States (28.3, 28.2, and 26.0, respectively).3

This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit: