Commentary: Eating disorders and the problem of "culture" in acculturation.

The papers in this issue grapple with a conundrum: what should we make of the fact that eating disorders, long considered to be the consummate culturebound syndrome of Western (post) industrial modernity, seem to be on the rise in purportedly “non-Western” or “non-modern” contexts across the globe? Before turning to the specifics of how the articles speak to this question, I would like to sketch, in minimalist fashion, an outline of the broader conceptual backdrop against which they should be read. The most common explanation in the scholarly literature for the appearance of eating disorders in unexpected places is that they are a result of the “Westernization” or “modernization” of the society in question (cf. Gunewardene et al. 2001; Lake et al. 2000; Littlewood 1995; Nasser et al. 2001; Stice et al. 1994). The basic proposition here is that as societies become more Western or more modern (or both, as the two are generally seen to be linked), the specific behaviors associated with eating disorders (e.g., self-starvation, bingeing and purging, body image disturbances, intense fear of gaining weight) become meaningful expressions of particular cultural features: heightened consumerism, media saturation, an ethos of independence, and an idealization of self discipline, coupled with the constant seduction to “supersize” everything, from fries to TVs to SUVs. From this perspective, the appearance of eating disorders in a given society is read as evidence of social change, a clear sign that Westernization and modernization are underway and that individuals in these societies are becoming increasingly acculturated to modern Western values (Chamorro and Florez-Ortiz 2000; Davis and Katzman 1999; Ford et al. 1990; Hall 1995; Jane et al. 1999; Joiner and Kashubeck 1996; Nasser 1986, 1997; Pumariega 1986; Wong and Huang 1999; Yoshimura 1995). While at first glance this proposition seems to be well supported by the data, there are a number of significant problems with the causal reasoning here, particularly in the way culture is talked about. First, the measures of acculturation themselves, while interesting and useful, are, perhaps ironically, problematic as bases for making a cultural argument. Contemporary understandings of acculturation vary but are generally consistent with the classic definition proposed by Redfield et al. (1936: 149) as occurring “when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first hand contacts, with subsequent changes