How we talk about eating disorders (and who we picture when we talk about them) reveals modern media’s influence on our understanding of race, representation, and health care. This is a tricky intersection to parse apart. Our relationships with our bodies, racial identity, and mental health are parts of a complex web that makes up our experiences. Unfortunately, historical traumas and systemic oppression pull at these threads too, influencing whose struggles are validated and whose are overlooked.

This article explores the complexities of how race and representation intersect with eating disorders. Specifically, we’ll look at how media portrayals reinforce narrow narratives, how systemic racism shows up in treatment access, and how we can work toward more inclusive, equitable care.

Why We Care: The Systems Shaping Eating Disorder Perception

In the U.S., oppressive world views shape the very way people are permitted to show up. Systemic racism has direct implications for how people of color are seen, how their health is treated, and how their suffering is validated (or not). At the National Alliance for Eating Disorders, part of our mission is to ensure access to treatment for all, meaning we must understand how race, identity, media, and health systems intersect. These intersections have deep roots in white supremacy that have become embedded in research design and medical gatekeeping, then magnified in media representation.

It’s not a hot take, but the 21st-century media landscape is tricky to navigate. Our modern-day lives exist in the wild west of the internet, where integrity isn’t everyone’s top priority. Social media, streaming series, influencer culture, and legacy journalism all shape the cultural norm around our food, bodies, health, and worth. But when traditional media, scientific research, and medical systems carry blind spots, too many people are excluded from the conversation. People go without diagnosis, without support, without treatment.

Before we can fully appreciate how the media shape perceptions of eating disorders, we must understand how race has shaped health care and medical research in the United States.

Medical Racism: How Our Culture’s Blind Spots Manifest in Mental Health

The U.S. has a long history of biased, dehumanizing, and malicious research and treatment of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Classic examples include practitioners who assumed Black people felt less pain or believed Latinx patients were less “compliant” with treatment or more prone to risky behavior. Unfortunately, these biases still ripple into contemporary medical practice.

For example, Black women today are about three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women. Meanwhile, Hispanic and Native American communities consistently have higher morbidity and mortality rates for a range of diseases. The “why” lies in systemic racism: restricted educational and occupational opportunities, lack of access to quality health insurance, provider bias, generational trauma, and the daily experience of micro-aggressions. People of color aren’t treated with the same respect and care in the medical system as white people.

When supporting and treating those with a mental illness, including eating disorders, this history matters. The experience of being treated as “lesser” in health systems fosters a justified distrust of medical institutions. But not seeking medical care or diagnoses for health issues comes with serious risks. It’s a catch-22, and that’s before we even touch on the role media and representation play.

Eating Disorders and Medical Racism

The relationship between people of color and our medical system is a sobering reality. Unfortunately, patterns of inequities and underdiagnoses show up in eating disorder care as well. It is a common misconception that eating disorders only affect white female adolescents who’ve experienced significant weight loss. It’s a stereotype that the media serves up time and time again, and it’s both a disservice to the young women whose illness becomes glamorized and a huge harm to people of other identities who are left out of the conversation entirely. Research has clearly shown that this is untrue, but clinical practice and media portrayals often remain stuck in that myth.

A meta-analysis of eating disorder research has indicated that rates of all EDs are the same or even higher in many racial and ethnic minority groups compared to white individuals. Among a group of Asian, Latino, African American, and non-Latino white people, rates of anorexia nervosa and binge eating disorder were statistically similar, and the prevalence of bulimia nervosa were higher among Latino and African American groups. 

Why Do the Stereotypes Still Exist? We Still Have Research Gaps

People of color are far less likely to be diagnosed with and treated for eating disorders, even if they check the boxes for multiple risk factors. Part of the responsibility lies with the scientific community itself. Research on eating disorders historically has over-sampled white women, meaning that diagnostic criteria, treatment protocols, and clinician training are based on learnings that often centred whiteness as the “norm.” 

Even though we are getting peer-reviewed studies that show we are leaving minority races out, research on the impact and treatment needs to catch up. A 2022 review, “A Plea for Diversity in Eating Disorders Research,” argues that diversity must be proactively embedded, not treated as an afterthought. Another study reviewed the backlog of eating disorder research to see how race and ethnicity were reported. Over the past 30 years, only 42% of ED studies reported race, and those that did had disproportionately white study samples. 

Bias Prevents Access to Treatment

The consequence: When someone outside the archetype presents with atypical symptoms (for example, binge-eating in a larger-bodied Black man, or restrictive eating in a young Indigenous person), clinicians may not recognize the disorder or may misattribute symptoms to other causes. And many individuals may internalize the belief that “eating disorders don’t happen to people like me,” and delay seeking help. 

This trend was identified in a 2019 study that documented the rates at which U.S. adults sought help for eating disorder diagnoses. Researchers found that racial minorities were significantly less likely to pursue treatment or support for EDs than their white peers.

Media’s Portrayals of Eating Disorders

Systemic racism puts barriers in place that prevent people from getting the support and treatment they need for eating disorders. We’ve touched on how these biases have existed in the scientific and medical communities, but now it’s time for the real catalyst: representation in the media. From Hollywood to TikTok, the stories we see every day shape how we think about bodies, health, and our identity.

How Media Has Perpetuated Medical Racism through Eating Disorder Portrayal

For decades, media portrayals of eating disorders have been narrow: young, white, thin, middle- or upper-class women with anorexia nervosa. That depiction carries multiple harmful messages: that eating disorders or body image issues are a “female” problem, an affluent problem, and only dangerous in certain body sizes. Research has highlighted that media depictions overwhelmingly diverge from the actual demographics of people with eating disorders. A study from 2023 analyzed portrayals of EDs in the media and found them overwhelmingly skewed toward young, white women. However, we know that these illnesses can cause irreparable harm to people of all identities and body shapes.

When media portrayals fixate on one image, the effects ripple across culture. When considering how race intersects with the representations of eating disorders in media, a few notable threads emerge. The first reflects how BIPOC individuals see themselves. Without representation, they may think that their suffering is not valid or recognized. On the other side of the medical system, care providers may be unconsciously influenced by the media and may dismiss symptoms in non-white individuals. At a broader level, the public may internalize that stigma, perpetuating the message “if you don’t look a certain way, it can’t be an ED”. Along with racism, there’s another systemic paradigm that impacts eating disorder representation in media: diet culture.

Disentangling from Diet Culture

Getting into the media’s portrayal of eating disorders, we can’t avoid contextualizing this issue in diet culture. Diet culture is the incorrect belief that the thin ideal and small body size equate moral virtue. It’s a story rooted in patriarchal and white supremacist views. Its modern form grew out of colonial ideals that associated restraint and being thin with being “civilized,” while framing non-white bodies as excessive, undisciplined, or inferior. These racialized ideas show up in medical racism and the media’s representation of eating disorders. 

Media plays a central role in keeping diet culture alive (along with all its baggage). Social media platforms reward “clean eating” content, body-transformation reels, and disordered eating. It continues to cast thinness as aspirational and moral. Even well-intentioned health content can reinforce harmful messages if it frames certain foods as “good” or “bad.”

The Intersection: Race + Eating Disorders + Media

When we bring together race, eating disorders, and representation in media, several threads emerge:

• Stereotypes persist: The default image of an eating disorder (white, underweight, female) neglects large segments of people who suffer from disordered eating behaviors. Men, people of color, larger-bodied individuals, and older adults are all underrepresented in media, research, diagnosis, and treatment.
• Mistrust is real: Because BIPOC communities have endured medical racism and neglect, messaging about eating disorders that is not culturally attuned may fail to reach those suffering. Additionally, misdiagnosis or dismissal of symptoms contributes to ongoing mistrust.
• Visibility matters: If someone doesn’t see a version of themselves or their body type in the narrative of eating disorders, they may not recognize their own symptoms, may feel unsafe seeking care, or may assume they are excluded from the definition of “who gets an ED.”
• Media amplifies or mitigates: When media replicates narrow stereotypes, it reinforces systemic inequities and has a negative impact. But when it diversifies representation, it has the power to shift norms and open doors.
• Treatment access is inequitable: The intersection of race and media feeds into who is considered “appropriate” for diagnosis or treatment. Less media visibility means less public awareness of eating disorder symptoms, fewer resources for recovery, and a perpetuation of racial disparities.

Hope in Representation: Media as a Force for Change

Though the media has historically contributed to narrow narratives, it also holds potential to shift culture and support equity. Here are some promising pathways to moving the needle:

• Broader storytelling: Platforms can feature characters or real-life stories of BIPOC individuals with eating disorders. When people see “someone like me” in the story, they may be called to advocate for their own well-being.
• Inclusive screening and messaging: Clinicians and organizations can work to use screening tools and outreach that acknowledge the diversity of presentation and atypical eating disorder diagnoses. 
• Media literacy and advocacy: Education campaigns can work with young people to critically engage with their social media use, questioning body ideals, calling out diet culture, and understanding hidden messaging.
• Research and policy movement: Call for diversity in eating disorder research so that our understanding of these illnesses and their treatments increases for all those struggling. 

On the Road to Equity

The road toward equitable representation and care for eating disorders is multi-layered. It requires us to recognize how systemic racism shaped research design and clinical practice and how the media has reinforced these narrow stereotypes. Ultimately, the risk of this influence is that invisibility can become a barrier to treatment. But seeing these patterns allows us to look ahead and create a world where eating disorders are acknowledged across race, body size, gender, class, and age. To get there, we need to push for the media to reflect that diversity and for treatment to become more accessible and culturally competent. 

At The Alliance, we strive to be a part of this change. We aim to connect those struggling, and their loved ones, with care and treatment that best fits their individual needs. When you call our helpline, for example, our licensed therapists work to find treatment options that work for you. We also offer free, therapist-led support groups for both folks living with eating disorders and their support systems. By providing both general pro-recovery support groups and affinity group spaces, we hope that those struggling can find a supportive environment during their eating disorder recovery. It’s all part of our commitment to help ensure that no one impacted by eating disorders has to struggle alone.