In other societies, members likewise indulge in fattening rituals. The U.S. contrast is stark. I think culturally they are a functional equivalent. Medical anthropologist Anne Becker also has seen eating attitudes that are worlds apart. Dr. Becker, director of research at the Harvard Eating Disorders Center, assembled a study of eating attitudes in 1995, after she heard television was coming to the Fiji province of Nadroga.
Obesity is common in Fiji.
Dr. Becker says. But they heeded cultural cues that discouraged deprivation. Three years later, it appeared that TV had narrowed the gulf between Nadroga and New England. In 1995, only 3 percent of the Fiji girls said they had ever vomited to control weight. In 1998, that number was 15 percent, a rate Dr. Becker calls comparable to U.S. schoolgirl groups.