Body-, eating-, and exercise-related social comparison behavior and disordered eating in college women in the U.S. and Iran: A cross-cultural comparison
Introduction
Though once considered to be an exclusively Western phenomenon, disordered eating symptoms are increasingly identified as a worldwide issue (Hoek, 2016). Research in the last decade has examined prevalence of disordered eating in both the United States (U.S.) and Iran (Rauof et al., 2015; Sahlan, Saunders, Mond, & Fitzsimmons-Craft, 2020; Udo & Grilo, 2018), and found the rates to be similar. Approximately 17% of the U.S. college women meet the criteria for high-ED-risk (Lipson & Sonneville, 2017) and those living in Muslim countries are at risk of developing a clinical eating disorder (ED; Thomas et al., 2018). Sociocultural pressures for thinness and thin-ideal internalization are implicated in the development and maintenance of disordered eating in Western young adult women (Culbert et al., 2015). These findings extend to Chinese undergraduate women (Jackson et al., 2016). Research on these interrelations is in nascent stages in Iranian college women (Sahlan, Saunders, et al., 2020).
As proposed by Festinger's (1954) social comparison theory, each person possesses an innate drive to assess their attitudes, opinions, and abilities through comparisons to relevant others. A growing body of literature identifies that body-, eating- and exercise-related comparison are each associated with disordered eating and predict disordered eating symptoms (Fitzsimmons-Craft et al., 2012; Fitzsimmons-Craft et al., 2014; Fitzsimmons-Craft et al., 2016). Driven by sociocultural factors promoting the thin-ideal, women engage in social comparison with both familiar and unfamiliar others and identify a discrepancy between their ideal and actual selves (Fitzsimmons-Craft, 2011; Fitzsimmons-Craft et al., 2016) and may aim to address that discrepancy through disordered eating behaviors. This link between body-related social comparison and disordered eating symptoms is also evident in Chinese female samples (Jackson et al., 2016).
Section snippets
East vs. West: cultural differences in social comparison
Social comparison is an important ED antecedent and maintenance factor; however, differences in cultural norms may lead to dissimilarities in the frequency and implications of this social-cognitive process (White & Lehman, 2005). One important cultural factor is the way in which Eastern and Western cultures view the self. The Eastern cultural view of the self as collectivistic and communal (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) leads individuals to be interdependent and maintain their self-esteem by fitting
Body image and disordered eating in Iranian women
The use of Islamic head and body cover, also known as hijab (i.e., Islamic-head and body coverings), relates directly and uniquely to Muslim women's lived bodily experiences (Tolaymat & Moradi, 2011). Iran is one of the few places in the world where the wearing of hijab is legally mandated by the government since the revolution of 1979. The vast majority of research to date, however, has focused on women who elect to wear the hijab. For example, Muslim women who elect to regularly wear a hijab
Current research
Given the prior mixed results regarding potential buffering effect of hijab-wearing, and the lack of research on ED-related social comparison and disordered eating in countries where the hijab is mandatory, this study examined these constructs and their interrelations in a sample of Iranian women. Levels of social comparison and ED cognitions and psychopathology in Iranian and U.S. college women were also compared. Social comparison has been identified as a robust predictor of the development
Participants
Participants were 564 college women from U.S. (n = 180) and Iran (n = 384). Participants were recruited via university classrooms (Iran), social media (U.S.), and the psychology undergraduate extra credit research pool (U.S.). None of the participants were offered remuneration for their participation beyond extra credit. The U.S. women's age ranged from 18 to 65 (M = 26.14, SD = 6.13); 10 participants failed to provide their age. Iranian women's age ranged from 18 to 54 (M = 21.91, SD = 3.89).
Results
Women in the U.S. reported greater body-, eating-, and exercise-related comparisons, dietary restraint, and overvaluation of weight and shape compared to Iranian women after controlling for age. In contrast, the differences in binge eating, purging, and excessive exercise were non-significant after controlling for age across U.S. and Iranian women. The effect sizes of these differences ranged from small (ƞ2 = 0.01 for excessive exercise) to large (ƞ2 = ≥0.15 for dietary restraint) after
Discussion
To the best of our knowledge, this was the first known study to examine ED-related social comparison and disordered eating in the U.S. and Iranian college women. Consistent with hypotheses, mean levels of body, eating, exercise-related social comparison and most disordered eating symptoms were higher in US women than Iranian women, even after controlling for age. However, binge and purge behaviors were comparable across cultures. Also, consistent with our hypothesis, we found that ED-related
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Reza Sahlan: collection of Iran data, data analysis, writing original draft, writing revision and editing
Jessica Saunders: collection of U.S. data, writing original draft, writing revision and editing
Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft: writing revision and editing
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interestsor personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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