Impact of Eating Disorder Stereotypes on Clinician Recognition of Disordered Eating
Abstract
There exists a stereotype that only upper-class Caucasian women are prone to developing
eating disorders and that minority women are immune to these disorders. This study
assesses the impact of this stereotype on a clinician's ability to diagnose and identify
disordered eating in minority populations. A sample of 64 randomly selected clinicians
from various universities were instructed to read one of two similar passages from a
young girl's diary that contained symptoms of disordered eating. The passages differed
only in the indicated race of the author: Caucasian or African American. Participants
were then asked to identify any behavioral abnormalities present in the young girl's diary
passage and to diagnose and refer treatment based on the problems they identified. Also,
participants were asked to rate the severity of the girl's eating disorder by completing a
modified Eating Disorder Inventory (ED I). Clinicians in the African American condition
identified eating disorders in the young girl significantly less often than clinicians in the
Caucasian condition. Thus, results indicated that race significantly affects clinicians'
ability to diagnose eating disorders in minority populations. The role of this clinician
bias as an impediment to diagnosis and subsequent treatment referrals is discussed. No
significant difference was found when the severity scores of the African American
condition and Caucasian condition were compared. Possible explanations for this result
are given.
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