Anderson-Fye, Eileen P. “A Coca-Cola Shape: Cultural Change, Body Image, and Eating Disorders in San Andres, Belize.” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 28, no. 4 (2004): 561–95.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-004-1068-4
San Andres in Belize is a town navigating rapid cultural change, and cultural norms involve intense focus on female appearance. Both of these factors in other contexts tend to produce a rise in the frequency of eating disorders. In San Andres, this is not the case. Anderson-Fye aims to explore why.
In San Andres, Fye finds that body shape, rather than body size, is the more salient factor in community assessments of beauty and in young women's body image. P.562
Fye also identifies what she calls a "protective ethnopsychology", referred to by the phrase "Never Lose Yourself", used in common parlance, helps to filter transnational messages about female bodies. P.562
Fye argues that an interactive process is taking place, where young women interpret and select which messages about bodies are consistent with a strong local ethnopsychology. P.562
Of the few women who do display disordered eating behaviors, all work in the tourism industry which caters to Western visitors. In these environments, thinness is critical for career success, so symptomatology is actually related to economic constraints and family obligations. P.563
The experience and risk factors for eating disorders must be reconsidered in this cultural context. P.563
Triangulation of Methods (ethnographic, participant observation, interviews and more formal tests and quizzes) allowed exploration of meaning-making and observable behavior in young women's worlds. P.566
Several factors have been associated with increased ED risk:
Exposure to and high levels of interaction with transnational media images; specific cultural values of self control and individuation and emphasis on beauty and youthfulness. P.564-565
Social-cultural transitions such as industrialization and modernization influence the major 'channels' through which these ideals are spread. P.565
Shifting social roles for women and economic change on state and individual levels plays a role. P.565
Though it is not only Westernization contributing to ED risk, exposure to Western media content can impact this risk. P.565
In San Andres, having a "Coca Cola" or "Fanta" shape and adorning oneself properly can make any woman "beautiful" regardless of overall size. P.567
No girl reported a pathologically small ideal body size. P.567
Girls and women of various sizes won important beauty pageants (though the variation has reduced over time and there is a trend toward thinness over time) P.567
Unanimous joke is that no one wants "Diet Coke" shape (i.e. No shape or straight shape). P.568
Height did not change subjective reports of body satisfaction or seem to matter communally either. P.568
Shape was the feature that was most connected emotionally with pride and dismay and helped to determine the important factor of whether or not one could "wear clothes well" P.568
Shape and care of the body prevailed over size and stature for most high school girls. P.569
Body size was thought to be a "natural" condition determined by one's family heritage and over which there was little control. P.570
While emphasis on beauty for women remained strong, the means to achieve it involved working with what one had to highlight qualities considered beautiful rather than disciplining the body into a uniform ideal. P.570
Most pageant participants reported eating due to hunger and the need for energy rather than linking eating directly with body size. P.577
San Andres ethnopsychology (local understanding and processing by which people make meaning and behavioral decisions is centered on self-protection and self-care) P.576
All of the young women in this study were familiar with a powerful concept that translates to "Never Leave Yourself" P.576
Leaving and not leaving the self was binary in which either one or the other option was chosen. P.577
The self in the San Andres construction was autonomous in terms of bodily boundaries but usually also psychologically and practically interdependent with close others, especially immediate family. P.577
Not leaving- and further caring for - the self required eating when hungry, stopping when full, sleeping when tired, and not over-exerting oneself in exercise. P.577
It also meant regulating body temperature, attending to physical discomfort, and minimizing stress. P.577
Monitored by internal experience, not external measurements. P.577
It is conceivable that other superceding goals, such as good jobs that require a particular appearance and that protect girls in other ways may unfortunately one day make it possible for girls to leave themselves through eating disordered behavior. P.578
The most consistent predictor of engagement with the content presented through these transnational channels was whether it fit with the "Never Leave Yourself" ethnopsychology. P.578
Their ethnopsychological interpretation was that ED behavior and Western beauty standards would require "leaving themselves" on a daily basis, an untenable situation. P.578
The state of dissociation and disembodiment that can facilitate eating disorders could not be imagined easily. P.586
Among the younger women who were displaying initial signs of restrictive eating or purging, all were economically dependent on the tourism industry to some extent and experienced family pressure to control their bodies. P.578
These women were also more likely to come from transnational families who had at least one member living in, working in, or regularly traveling to the U.S. P.579
In the main strip of town, where many of the tourist restaurants and hotels are located, thinner women are up to five times more likely to have higher status and higher paid jobs than heavier women. P.580
Concerns with family opinions and reliance on tourism industry may put girls at greater risk for experimentation with body size control. P.585
Brisk sales of diet pills and confirmation from medical practitioners indicate that many women were at least buying, and probably using, a variety of weight-loss drugs. P.587
Also awareness that ED behaviors can present without the emotional "fear of fat" - Meeting career success goals and family expectations of thinness may spur a type of behaviorally driven eating disorder in which cognitive-emotional symptoms develop only later. P.588
Monitored by internal experience, not external measurements. P.577
Girls may redefine self-care to mean career and financial success, which could override more basic (and taken-for-granted) embodied notions of activity, rest, hunger, and fullness. P.589