There has been a growing interest in eating disorders among Singaporean medical professionals since the 1990s, and the Singaporean public is also starting to become aware of the risks of these conditions. This ethnographic research on eating disorders in Singapore, conducted in 2001, however, found that the majority of the informants with these conditions have struggled with a lack of understanding from others. This thesis aims to increase understanding by bringing these under-represented sufferers' voices to the forefront. This thesis focuses on the immense fear and guilt about gaining weight that are shared by these individuals. Unlike medical science, which usually considers such fear and guilt to be pathological, this thesis looks at these emotions as cultural by using the anthropological theory of feelings as well as the theory of the body politic. By illustrating how thinness has become an ideal image for Singaporean women in the past twenty years, cultural components of these feelings become readable to those without eating disorders. This thesis recommends two ways to increase understanding of the informants' inner struggles. First, medical science should consider culture a possible cause of eating disorders, since the exclusion of culture from the etiology legitimizes a lack of understanding on the part of those without eating disorders. Secondly, instead of asserting that appearance is unimportant, those without eating disorders should acknowledge that appearance plays an important role in human lives across every culture. Furthermore, they need to understand that while society superficially encourages people to accept themselves as they are, it stigmatizes fatness more forcefully. Lastly, they need to consider that the dieting industry often exploits medical science to justify its image of the ideal female body. / Graduation date: 2003

Binge is a multi-media installation consisting of dangling IV bags looming over a large table of food. Monitors on the table show live online chats about thinness, depression and eating disorders. On the rear wall, interview footage describing the gruesome experiences of the eating disorder sufferer intercut with the newest development of the disease, the online presence. The installation confronts the viewer with the horrible dualities of the disease: discipline and madness, reason and passion, and suffering and indulgence. The work references the philosophic mind/body struggle as well as the grim reality of these afflicted young women.

Many studies reported that childhood abuse and stress play contributory roles in the development and maintenance of disordered eating behaviors. However, these studies made no mentioned efforts to validate their self-report data, and thus failed to separate the effects of actuality versus perception of childhood abuse. Thus, the current study examined how perceptions of childhood abuse and life stress affect binge eating behavior among university students. Participants for the current study included 173 undergraduate students, recruited via Study Board. After giving verbal consent, participants completed a series of surveys and questionnaires that collected demographic data, and measured perception of abuse, perceived stress levels and binge eating activity. Upon completion, participants were given either course credits or extra credits, to be given at the discretion of their professors. Results indicated that all of the hypotheses were supported. There were significant differences between the perception of abuse and the perceived life stress conditions (respectively). Furthermore, both of the independent variables were shown to be predictive of binge eating behavior. However, there was no interaction effect between the two independent variables. Moreover, these two variables did not moderate each other in terms of predicting binge eating behavior among university students. Findings from this study indicated that perceptions of childhood abuse and recent life stress are both predictive of binge eating activity among university students, which was highest among individuals with a perceived history of childhood abuse. While findings from this study showed a correlation between perception of abuse and binge eating behavior, they did not show a correlation between reporting of actual incidents of childhood abuse and binge eating behavior. There were a number of limitations to the study, including limited generalizability of the findings, limited reliability of self-report measures, and any confounding of analyzed data due to order effect. Future studies are encouraged to further explore the relationship between perception and actuality of childhood abuse.

Eating disorders and borderline personality disorder involve several overlapping features, such as impulsivity, negative affectivity, and dissociation. However, few studies have specifically assessed how eating pathology and borderline personality may be related. The present study sought to evaluate this relationship by focusing on one particular area of overlap, negative affectivity. A pilot study assessed the psychometric properties of a dietary restraint measure among undergraduate women (N = 149). In the main study, undergraduate women (N = 307) completed a baseline mood assessment, then viewed a 39-minute sad film either with or without concurrent food presentation. Participants then completed a second mood assessment, and those who received food completed a third mood assessment following a 10-minute post-reflection delay. Results suggest that women reporting more borderline features exhibited greater negative affect across three different time points (baseline, post-movie/food, and post-reflection period), and were more reactive to the sad film. Food presentation appeared to have a small tempering effect on sadness, such that individuals who received food reported relatively less sadness after viewing the film when compared to those who did not receive food. However, actual quantity of food consumption was associated with improvements in mood only for women reporting higher levels of borderline features. Finally, highscorers on dietary restraint measures consumed greater quantities of food than their lowscoring counterparts. In sum, these data suggest that women with borderline personality features may be at elevated risk for developing problems with binge-eating, as consuming larger quantities of food appeared to have a tempering effect on their negative mood and specific feelings of sadness. Further, results are consistent with earlier findings in that reported efforts to restrain dietary intake were associated with greater food consumption in response to negative affect, and this relationship may need to be addressed in treating individuals with problematic eating behaviors.

The immediate effect of maternal control of their daughter's eating is well documented. However, the longterm effect of both maternal and paternal control of eating during childhood on adults' current eating attitudes and behaviors has been a relatively unexplored area. Parents play a central role in shaping the family eating environment, which provides a context for the child's relationship with food for years to come (Birch, Fisher, Grimm-Thomas, Markey, Sawyer & Johnson, 2001). The present study focused on expanding the existing knowledge base concerning parental control over eating. Two hundred sixty-seven female adult participants completed a questionnaire packet designed to measure maternal and paternal restriction and pressure to eat during childhood, family mealtime stress during childhood, current restriction, binge eating, emotional eating, eating from external cues, and current affect during meals. Results indicated that parental pressure to eat during childhood are related to restricted eating, emotional eating, and eating from external cues during adulthood. Family mealtime stress during childhood was related to binge eating, restricted eating, emotional eating, eating from external cues, and negative affect while eating during adulthood. Implications for practice and recommendations for future research are presented.

The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of a Spanish version of the Bulimia Test-Revised (BULIT-R). The goal was to test the factorstructure equivalence of the BULIT-R across two samples of college students from two different cultures, Spain and the U.S. Researchers using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) have reported different model solutions for the factor structure of the BULIT-R: a one-factor model (McCarthy et al., 2002); a four-factor model (Vincent et al., 2002), a five-factor model (Thelen et al., 1991) and a six factor model (Santos, 1996). For any of the two samples, CFA did not support any of the models previously reported in the literature. EFA supported a six and a four factor models for the US and Spanish samples, respectively.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-162). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 46 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 44-46).

Thesis (Ph.D)--Virginia Commonwealth University, 2009. / Prepared for: Dept. of Psychology. Title from title-page of electronic thesis. Bibliography: leaves 147-173.

Thesis (M.S.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-98).