Hello and welcome to the Congressional briefing: Dying to be thin: The prevention of eating disorders and the role of Federal policy. My name is Jeanine Cogan, I represent SPSSI The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and I will be your moderator today.

I would like to start by offering a short five minute introduction to this topic and then I will introduce our distinguished panel of speakers with whom I am so honored to be sitting at the table.

One of the themes you will find repeated throughout the presentations today is that we must go beyond our conceptualization of eating disorders as 'mental illnesses'.

The large numbers of girls and women who suffer from eating disorders is a growing public health threat and a social issue. What does it mean to understand eating disorders as a social issue? It means we centralize the role of socio-cultural factors in the development of eating disorders. This means that we view the individual, which in this case is most often a woman, within her environment not separate from her environment. It means we acknowledge our society's emphasis on beauty and thinness in particular for women and girls, has direct consequences for their lives and mental health. We recognize that while eating disorders are serious and dangerous - there are many more women and girls who suffer from lesser degrees of body dissatisfaction or discomfort and this has direct implications for their quality of life.

Just last week there was an article on the front page of the Washington Post about the 'epidemic' of eating disorders in Argentina. They called it the 'model syndrome' clearly acknowledging the powerful influence of sociocultural factors which in this case was a value placed on thinness as was evident by the extremely thin role models which the girls and young women were striving to emulate. Certainly we have the same pressures of thinness here in the U.S. But before we are quick to assume that thinness is a universal ideal and strived for goal - I remind people that cross-cultural research shows this is not the case. In some cultures thin is not in. In a study I conducted with colleagues in Ghana, Africa - we had two important findings which are useful today. First, we found that people in Ghana did not rate thin figures as more representative of ideal beauty than fat figures. And second we found the sample of Ghanians were not likely to engage in dieting behaviors or suffer from eating disorders. High rates of problem eating and eating disorders are not an issue in Ghana, yet they are in Argentina, the US, and other countries where thinness is overvalued. This reminds us of the importance of cultural values and norms and how these cultural values to some extent determine the problems and issues of a particular society.

Examining the role of sociocultural factors in the development of eating disorders has important implications for prevention. If we are able to identify specific factors in society that place people at risk as Dr. Ruth Striegel-Moore will address in her talk, then we are able to make changes accordingly. A change for example that has been suggested as an effort for the prevention of eating disorders is a shift in our approach towards health. A more comprehensive model towards health and eating disorders that centralizes the role of socio-cultural factors will be addressed and developed by the speakers.

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