Is the face of eating disorders only white and middle class?

Not even close, according to Becky Thompson, a professor of African-American studies and sociology who studies eating problems from a multiracial perspective. Thompson is the author of "A Hunger So Wide and So Deep: A Multiracial View of Women's Eating Problems" (University of Minnesota Press, 1997). The book culminates her unique research, based on eighteen multiracial women's struggles with anorexia, bulimia, dieting and compulsive eating.

Thompson's subjects are African American, White, biracial, Latina and Jewish; their classes and sexual orientations vary. The link? They've grown up with a variety of stresses--racism, homophobia, sexism and abuse--which Thompson pinpoints as the true catalysts of many body problems.

So why the shroud of silence? Shame makes it especially difficult for women who don't fit the "profile" to speak up and seek help. For many ethnic women, healing from body problems goes hand-in-hand with finding a solid racial, sexual, or personal identity.

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