Cumulative exposure to state-level structural sexism and risk of disordered eating: Results from a 20-year prospective cohort study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Gendered inequities in disordered eating are well-documented, yet few studies have examined their structural drivers. To help fill this gap, we investigated whether cumulative exposure to state-level structural sexism from childhood through young adulthood potentiates differences in disordered eating risk between cisgender girls/women and boys/men.

Methods

Participants came from the Growing Up Today Study (N = 16,875), a cohort of children aged 9-14 years in 1996 who we followed through 2016. Using a composite index of relevant state policies and social inequalities from the Institute for Women's Policy Research, we categorized states as having high or low levels of structural sexism and summed the number of years participants had lived in a high structural sexism

SUBMITTER: Beccia AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9167701 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature