Editing Eating disorder (section)

====== Fiji ======
While colonised by the British in 1874, Fiji kept a large degree of linguistic and cultural diversity which characterised the ethnic Fijian population. Though gaining independence in 1970, Fiji has rejected Western, capitalist values which challenged its mutual trusts, bonds, kinships and identity as a nation.<ref>{{cite book |vauthors=Becker AE |title=Body, self, and society : the view from Fiji |date=1995 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-1397-3 |location=Philadelphia |page=15}}</ref> Similar to studies conducted on Polynesian groups, ethnic Fijian traditional aesthetic ideals reflected a preference for a robust body shape; thus, the prevailing 'pressure to be slim,' thought to be associated with diet and disordered eating in many Western societies was absent in traditional Fiji.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Pollock N |date=1985 |title=The Concept of Food in a Pacific Society: A Fijian Example |journal=Ecology of Food and Nutrition |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=195–203 |doi=10.1080/03670244.1985.9990896|bibcode=1985EcoFN..17..195P}}</ref> Additionally, traditional Fijian values would encourage a robust appetite and a widespread vigilance for and social response to weight loss. Individual efforts to reshape the body by dieting or exercise, thus traditionally was discouraged.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Becker AE, Hamburg P |title=Culture, the media, and eating disorders |journal=Harvard Review of Psychiatry |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=163–7 |date=January 1996 |pmid=9384990 |doi=10.3109/10673229609030540 |s2cid=30169613}}</ref>

However, studies conducted in 1995 and 1998 both demonstrated a link between the introduction of television in the country, and the emergence of eating disorders in young adolescent ethnic Fijian girls.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Becker AE, Gilman SE, Burwell RA |title=Changes in prevalence of overweight and in body image among Fijian women between 1989 and 1998 |journal=Obesity Research |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=110–7 |date=January 2005 |pmid=15761169 |doi=10.1038/oby.2005.14 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Through the quantitative data collected in these studies there was found to be a significant increase in the prevalence of two key indicators of disordered eating: self-induced vomiting and high Eating Attitudes Test- 26.<ref name="Eating behaviours and attitudes fol">{{cite journal |vauthors=Becker AE, Burwell RA, Gilman SE, Herzog DB, Hamburg P |title=Eating behaviours and attitudes following prolonged exposure to television among ethnic Fijian adolescent girls |journal=The British Journal of Psychiatry |volume=180 |issue=6 |pages=509–14 |date=June 2002 |pmid=12042229 |doi=10.1192/bjp.180.6.509 |doi-access=free}}</ref> These results were recorded following prolonged television exposure in the community, and an associated increase in the percentage of households owning television sets. Additionally, qualitative data linked changing attitudes about dieting, weight loss and aesthetic ideas in the peer environment to Western media images. The impact of television was especially profound given the longstanding social and cultural traditions that had previously rejected the notions of dieting, purging and body dissatisfaction in Fiji.<ref name="Eating behaviours and attitudes fol"/> Additional studies in 2011 found that social network media exposure, independent of direct media and other cultural exposures, was also associated with eating pathology.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Becker AE, Fay KE, Agnew-Blais J, Khan AN, Striegel-Moore RH, Gilman SE |title=Social network media exposure and adolescent eating pathology in Fiji |journal=The British Journal of Psychiatry |volume=198 |issue=1 |pages=43–50 |date=January 2011 |pmid=21200076 |pmc=3014464 |doi=10.1192/bjp.bp.110.078675 |doi-access=free}}</ref>