A Comparison Study of United States and African Students on Perceptions of Obesity and Thinness

Abstract

There is a negative correlation between body weight and income in the United States, and epidemic numbers of people diet to become thin. In developing nations, on the other hand, there is a positive correlation between weight and income, and fatness is associated with wealth and abundance. Although these differing cross-cultural trends have been documented by anthropologists, there has been minimal cross-cultural research on attitudes toward obesity and thinness and corresponding dieting behaviors in the psychological literature. A sample of 349 students at a university in Ghana and 219 students at a U.S. university completed questionnaires about their weight, frequency of dieting and restrained eating, the degree to which their weight has interfered with social activities, their perceptions of ideal bodies, disordered eating, and stereotypes of thin and heavy people. Students in Ghana more often rated larger body sizes as ideal for both males and females and also assumed that these larger sizes were held as ideals in society, than did U.S. students. U.S. students (regardless of weight) were more likely to have dieted than were Ghanaian students, with U.S. females being most likely to diet. Additionally, U.S. females scored significantly higher on restraint, eating-disordered behavior, and experiencing weight as social interference. Findings illustrate that perceptions of ideal body size and corresponding behaviors are influenced by culture and gender.