Explaining the effect of ethnic group on weight concern: finding a role for family values.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the impact of ethnic group on aspects of weight concern and to assess the role of family values in explaining this association.


METHODS
20 Asian and 20 white daughters gave a questionnaire to their mother, father and sibling closest in age, concerning their profile characteristics (age, education) values and beliefs and completed a matched questionnaire containing additional measures of aspects of their weight concern.


RESULTS
The results showed no differences between the white and Asian daughters in terms of either their restrained eating or body dissatisfaction. However, the results showed consistent differences between the members of the two family groups in terms of the value placed on achievement, child/parent relationships, competition, the role of women, and some differences in terms of materialism, the value of appearance and their idea of the perfect female body. The results were then analysed to assess the best predictors of the daughter's weight concern. Whereas restrained eating was related to the mother's rating of the value of physical appearance and the sibling's ratings of competitiveness and a non-traditional role for women (40% of the variance), the results showed that body dissatisfaction was related to the daughter's rating of materialism, having a father who preferred a thinner female body, the siblings ratings of a non-traditional role for women, degree of concordance within the family concerning the value of competitiveness and the educational level of the 'head of the family' (49% of variance).


CONCLUSIONS
Whereas a dichotomous model of ethnicity may be insufficient to explain differences in aspects of weight concern, an expanded model of cultural beliefs may be a more powerful construct. Accordingly, the absence or presence of differences in weight concern according to ethnic group may simply reflect the extent to which the different groups chosen for analysis are differentiated by these predictive values.
Department of General Practice, UMDS, London University, UK.
J
J
Ogden
A
A
Chanana
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001835:Body Weight / Q000208:ethnology*; D005006:Ethnicity; D005192:Family Health / Q000208:ethnology*; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009679:Nuclear Family; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010551:Personality; D012649:Self Concept; D012945:Social Values; D044465:White People