Moderation Effects of Ethnic-Racial Identity on Disordered Eating and Ethnicity Among Asian and Caucasian Americans

Background: The current study was designed to examine whether ethnic-racial identity (ERI) moderated the relationship between disordered eating and primary ethnic identification. Methods: Three hundred and ninety-eight undergraduate women (M(age) = 19.95, SD = 3.09) were recruited from a large university in Hawai‘i. Participants completed the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q), the ERI measure, and reported their primary ethnicity as an index of ethnicity. Results: There was a significant correlation between eating concerns and centrality, r((357)) = 0.127, p < 0.05. Moderation analyses indicated that only ERI centrality moderated the predictive effect of ethnicity on the importance of eating concerns, b = 0.05, t((347)) = 2.37, p = 0.018. Conclusions: The results suggest that the relationship between self-reported primary ethnicity and EDEQ scores is greater when ethnicity is more central to the individual's identity or when the in-group affect is important to an individual. Findings underscore the need for further research on the underlying mechanisms that account for the differing ways that ERI may affect eating concerns.