Neera completed a degree in Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Alberta. She has gone on to do a combined Masters in Public Health Nutrition and her Dietetic Internship upon which she will be registered with the Dietitians of Canada. She has worked as a Community Nutritionist for the South Asian population and has been featured in Flare Magazine and Family Health Magazine. Questions about food and nutrition? Calories in Indian foods? Low-fat desi-recipes or fad diets? Email her! neera@mybindi.com

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Eating Disorders:
The Prevelance in South Asians

It was once a widely held belief that the only people who suffered from Eating Disorders were white, middle to upper class, college-aged North American women. A great number of researchers are focusing in on why there seems to be an increase in the growing number of Black, Hispanic, Asian, South Asian and Native North Americans who sufferer from an Eating Disorder. The relationship between ethnocultural identity and Eating Disorders is complex and research in this area is just beginning. In the initial research in this area, it was believed that a strong perceived need for identification with the dominant culture correlated positively to the development of eating disorders in women of colour.

The South Asian culture traditionally accepted more fat on women than the White culture, but when South Asian middle-class women become integrated into the White culture while they are trying to get ahead, they become more at risk of developing Eating Disorders. As South Asian women compete more and more in the professional job market and face the pressures of trying to succeed, they can be faced with discrimination as well as society's portrayal of the successful "smart, beautiful and thin" career woman.

Bollywood Film Stars Are Not Helping
There has been a steady increase among first generation Indo-Canadians in the interest of Bollywood films and film stars. While this is a wonderful thing that helps keep this generation in touch with their South Asian culture, there may also be a "down-side" as well. Young white women and girls faced with thin and beautiful white celebrities aspire to be like them -- it would make sense then to think that young South Asian women and girls, when faced with seemingly beautiful and thin celebrities of their own culture (such as Aishwariya Rai, Sonali Bendre and Shilpa Shetty), might also wish to achieve the same physical goals.

The psychological reasons that South Asian women develop Eating Disorders are virtually the same. Family problems, parents with negative coping mechanisms like alcohol, history of abuse, and/or relationship issues, plus a need to cope with stress, pain and anger, and a low self-esteem. Dealing with being a first-generation Indo-Canadian, trying to strike a balance between traditional South Asian values and expectations and those of the dominant Western culture, add to the pressures and stress of growing. In addition, South Asian women also face issues of discrimination that may contribute to their low self-worth and desire to be loved and accepted.

Feeding the Body, Mind & Spirit
In order to have a healthy body and achieve optimum health, you must feed your body healthy foods. By choosing nutritious foods you insure that your body receives the vital nutrients it needs to be healthy. Incorporating a variety of foods from all of the four food groups in your daily meal plans, choosing whole foods (unprocessed), rich in vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, are the best choice to keep the body fit. Eating with your family and enjoying your traditional foods are others ways to maintain a healthy body and mind connection. The body, mind and spirit are connected. When you feed your body healthy foods it is a sign that you care for yourself, that you honor your body as the temple of the soul. When you make good food choices you nourish the body, mind and spirit.

The mind needs to be nurtured as much as the rest of your body. By focusing on positive and affirming self-statements you feed and nurture your mind. As you direct your thoughts toward healing, as you think healthy thoughts, as you give power to your thoughts of health and healing you make progress in a positive direction. What your mind creates it can achieve!

To feed yourself spiritually requires active participation and the commitment to spend time with your Higher Power. When you make your spiritual well-being a priority you allow Spirit to move through you and create healing in your life. When you take the time to feed yourself spiritually your whole life becomes healthier. Traditionally South Asians have incorporated tools like meditation and yoga that can make this connection with the Higher Power.

Yes, South Asian Men Get Eating Disorders Too
The most likely victims of muscle dysmorphia or reverse anorexia are men fuelled by the desire to be bulky. They begin working out intensely, eat very low fat food, and abuse drugs like steroids, just to be bigger and more muscular. The term was coined earlier this decade by Dr Harrison Pope, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and fellow researchers at Brown University and Keele University in England. This condition is becoming more and more prevalent among South Asian men, perhaps for the same reasons discussed above for women.

A type of obsessive-compulsive disorder, its victims are fixated with their muscle size. Often, sufferers are convinced that they are too small despite being big by normal standards. A typical victim spends hours working out, and gets anxious over missing one session. He goes through elaborate rituals examining, weighing and measuring his body, simply to convince himself his muscles are not shrinking.

Some men go to the city gym not once, but twice a day, often thinking that "All guys naturally want to sculpt their bodies, you just have to want it badly enough to make time for it." Some men manage to gain 50 lbs in less than two years and have no plans to stop, convincing themselves that exercising and use of 'supplements' (like protein shakes and creatine) do not amount to a disorder.

The disorder often co-exists with the use of body-enhancing drugs, which can cause a whole separate set of side effects. For example, one research subject had taken so many steroids that he was losing his hair. It can also be accompanied by depression, mood swings and other obsessive-compulsive behaviour, like over-eating.

Either way, no matter what gender, colour, race, cultural background or sexual orientation a sufferer comes from the Eating Disorders that affect them are devastating. Each person, male or female, is suffering inside from the emotion turmoil that led him or her to seek comfort from Anorexia, Bulimia or Compulsive Overeating and each of them deserves to find help and recovery so that they may learn to love themselves, inside and out.

If you are suffering from an Eating Disorder or know or suspect someone of suffering from an Eating disorder seek help. There are many culturally appropriate health resources on the Internet and within your local health authority.

The National Eating Disorder Information Center
www.nedic.ca

Eating Disorder Treatment Centers in Canada
www.eating-disorder.org/canadacenters.html