Capstone Presentation

Title: “Food-weighs:” A cultural examination of how a racialized body image affects the dietary behaviors of women in America

Bibliography:

Bruch, Hilde

1999  Body Image and Self Awareness. In Food and Culture: A Reader.  Counihan, Carole and Penny van Esterik, eds. Pp. 211-225.  New York: Routledge.

Flowers, Kelci C., Maurice J. Levesque, and Sarah Fischer

2011  The Relationship Between Maladaptive Eating Behaviors and Racial Identity Among African American Women in College.  Journal of Black Psychology 38(3):290-312.

Granberg, Ellen M, Leslie Gordon Simons, and Ronald L. Simons

2009  Body Size and Social Self-Image Among Adolescent African American Girls: The Moderating Influence of Family Racial Socialization.  Youth Society 41:256-277.

Lovejoy, Meg

2001  Disturbances in the Social Body:  Differences in Body Image and Eating Problems among African American Women and White Women.  Gender & Society 12:239-261.

Sutherland, Marcia E.

2013  Overweight and Obesity Among African American Women:  An Examination of Predictive and Risk Factors and Weight-Reduction Recommendations.  Journal of Black Studies 44:846-869.

Elevator Pitch: An eclectic body of literature within the social sciences reveals a connection between racialized identity and dietary habits among women in the United States. Specifically, White and African American women have resorted to disordered eating to cater to particular body images associated with racial identities.  This anthropological approach seeks to highlight the social structures in American society that effectively promote disturbances in body image and eating.  This study, therefore, synthesizes the existing literature to identify how the American racial worldview has influenced cultural, political, and economic structures that have affected women's food habits on multiple social scales. Ultimately, this study will filter its food-culture analysis through a feminist approach in anthropology in order to address how food habits contribute to race, identity, and influence the perceived-self. 

Theory: As to represent the interdisciplinary approach that often encompasses studies of food and body image, I will be incorporating theory from psychology, sociology, and anthropology.  The anthropological theory that will frame the majority of my research will be based on symbolic interpretations of culture.  I will specifically employ the contributions to the ideas of embodiment and subjectivity as provided by Mary Douglas and Pierre Bourdieu.  Claude Fischler will also serve as a theoretical foundation for understanding the relationship between food, the body, and identity.  Certain terminology stemming from psychology and sociology, such as the phenomena of racial socialization, will be applied in this case in order to support anthropological claims on the causes of diet choice and racial body-image.