Dr. Gupta is a licensed psychologist and professor at Barnard College, Columbia University. She specializes in the treatment of anxiety and eating/weight issues at 
Parental expectations are related to bulimia in African-American women
February 23, 2012
How do parental expectations influence patterns of bulimia in adulthood? According to a recent study, it depends on two factors: your race and how you perceive your parents’ expectations.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at the University of Missouri recently completed a study on college students with bulimic symptoms. They found that, for African-American students, perceiving high parental expectations as negative was associated with bulimic symptoms.
In other words, Black women who felt bad about their parents’ high expectations tended to experience more bulimic symptoms. However, Black women who felt good about their parents’ high expectations had the opposite effect – less bulimic symptoms.
Feeling good about parents’ high expectations meant feeling like your parents are confident in you and think you have potential. Feeling bad about parents’ high expectations meant feeling like your parents demand too much and would inevitably be disappointed in you.
For White students, there was no relationship between perception of parental expectations and bulimia.
Why would parental expectations be related to bulimia for only Black women, but not White women? The study authors suggest this could be due to cultural differences such as Black women having stronger emotional and behavioral responses to parental expectations. On the other hand, the authors suggest that White women may be more susceptible to other types of expectations (e.g. media ideals) compared to Black women.
While the study only examined college students, it suggests that communicating high expectations to children in a supportive way may prevent bulimic symptoms, at least among African-American women.
Photo credit: Mohamad Itani