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When you imagine a person who might have an eating disorder, what do they look like? Lisa Kilpela, PhD, co-director of the Center for Research to Advance Community Health at UT Health San Antonio, says there’s a stereotype. It’s called the Golden Girl myth.
“It's a thin, young, white woman or girl who is fairly affluent,” Kilpela said. “And that stereotype, for decades, drove where all of the resources, the energy, the time, the money, everything was spent in terms of understanding eating disorders, how they affect people, and how you treat them.”
That has left a lot of people out. Kilpela said 30 million Americans a year will develop an eating disorder. Ten percent will experience one in their lifetime. Most of them won’t fit that stereotype.
“So we're looking at folks who are struggling and whose quality of life is pretty significantly impaired, and yet they don't realize they might have an eating disorder because of the stereotypes,” Kilpela said.
Associate Director, Center for Research to Advance Community Health (ReACH)
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
She said those suffering aren’t the only ones who don’t recognize they might have an eating disorder. The public doesn't recognize it. Clinicians don't recognize it. Kilpela wants to change that. She and Trinity University psychology professor Carolyn Black Becker plan to study chronic binge eating disorder in a very specific population: older Hispanic women living with food insecurity. They want to better understand how food insecurity impacts the human body over time in this age and ethnic group, but also how binge eating disorder and food insecurity might influence each other.
“If you're living with binge eating disorder, does it make your food insecurity worse?” Kilpela wants to know. “Does food insecurity make your binge eating worse? How do [you] transact over time?"
Up to 20% of women over 60 have chronic binge eating disorder, Kilpela said. It’s not a “niche illness.” The economic impact rivals illnesses like schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease, she added.
Findings from this study could influence how binge eating disorder is understood and treated, but Kilpela hopes they will also dispel the Golden Girl myth that has trapped so many people in needless suffering.
The PROSPERA study (Prospective Health Impacts of Chronic Binge Eating Disorder in Hispanic Older Women Living with Food Insecurity) has been awarded a $2.2 million grant by the National Institutes of Health National Institute on Aging. Kilpela and Beck will collaborate with the San Antonio Food Bank.
Science & Medicine is a collaboration between TPR and The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio that explores how scientific discovery in San Antonio advances the way medicine is practiced everywhere.
