Barriers to Treatment for Mexican-American Women

Reprinted from Eating Disorders Review
March/April 2003 Volume 14, Number 2
©2003 Gürze Books

Cultural barriers may keep some Mexican-American women with eating disorders from receiving adequate treatment, according to researchers at California State University, Los Angeles, and Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT.

Fary M. Cachelin, PhD and colleagues concluded this after studying a group of 47 women, including 22 Mexican-American women and 25 European-American (white) women with clinical eating disorders, who had been recruited from the community. Diagnoses were established with the Eating Disorders Examination (EDE) and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM (SCID). Only 43% of the group reported seeking treatment for eating disorders.

Mexican-American women and non-Hispanic women were equally likely to feel they had a significant eating problem and to want help for it. However, there were several major differences between the two groups. Mexican-American women were much less likely to seek treatment for their eating disorder (32% vs. 50%, respectively).

Among those who sought treatment, Mexican-American women were less likely than non-Hispanic women to have received a diagnosis (14% vs. 67%, respectively) and were also less likely to have been treated for their eating disorder (28.5% vs. 75.0%, respectively). Non-Hispanic women were more likely to have received individual psychotherapy from mental health practitioners, while Mexican-American women mostly visited general practitioners. The non-Hispanic women also were more likely than the Mexican-American women to have sought nonprofessional treatment for their eating disorder, such as from self-help groups like Overeaters Anonymous (83% of non-Hispanic women vs. 29% of Mexican-American women).

Why some women didn’t seek treatment

Information about the women who didn’t seek treatment was also intriguing. Most Mexican-American women who hadn’t sought treatment said they: (1) did not know where to find treatment, and/or (2) were ashamed to admit they had disordered eating. Non-Hispanic women who didn’t seek treatment: (1) didn’t think their problems were serious enough, and (2) believed they should be able to help themselves. Mexican women were most likely to turn to other sources, such as family and friends, for help.

The authors, who presented their study at the Eating Disorders Research Society meeting in Charleston, SC, called for better outreach efforts to help Mexican-American women with eating disorders get the treatment they need.

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