# State, food, and me: an autoethnographic reflection on the sociocultural dimensions of Chinese women’s eating disorders

## TL;DR

This paper explores how cultural and societal factors in China contribute to eating disorders among women and challenges Western-centric approaches to understanding and treating them.

## Contribution

The study introduces a critical autoethnographic perspective to highlight sociocultural barriers in China that are overlooked in Western psychiatric models.

## Key findings

- Chinese women face sociocultural pressures such as beauty standards, competition, and Confucian gender norms that contribute to eating disorders.
- Mental health challenges in China include inadequate resources, stigma, and treatment paradigms that neglect trauma.
- Eating disorders are linked to broader social forces like neoliberalism and gender inequality, requiring cultural transformation for recovery.

## Abstract

Eating disorders among Chinese women have been growing in recent years, yet, little research has explored these experiences in non-Western contexts. This study aimed to challenge the dominant Western-centric models, which often universalise psychiatric frameworks and overlook culturally embedded aspects of distress. It critically examines how sociocultural forces in contemporary China shape the development and recovery of eating disorders among Chinese women.

This paper adopted a critical autoethnographic approach, grounded in the author’s decade-long lived experience as a Chinese woman with eating disorders.

The paper highlighted key sociocultural barriers faced by Chinese women, including the societal emphasis on women’s appearance, pervasive competition culture, and Confucian gender norms. It also identified specific structural challenges in China, such as inadequate psychiatric resources, treatment paradigms neglecting trauma, entrenched stigma surrounding mental illness, and a cultural history that moralises food consumption and waste.

Guided by feminist and poststructuralist critiques, the paper argued that eating disorders among Chinese women are not merely personal or psychological conditions, but reflect broader social tensions linked to neoliberal governmentality, gender inequality, and moral values in contemporary China. Recovery, therefore, cannot be reduced to clinical intervention alone; it also demands reclaiming subjectivity beyond sociocultural constraints.

This paper adopted an autoethnographic approach to explore how sociocultural factors in China influence the development and recovery of eating disorders among women. Drawing upon the author’s decade-long experience of living with eating disorders, it highlighted the pressures Chinese women face, including the emphasis on beauty, social competition, and traditional gender expectations. The paper also discussed challenges in the mental health system, including lack of resources and stigma. The author showed that eating disorders are not just individual or medical problems, but deeply connected to broader forces of neoliberal governmentality, gender inequality, and moral values. This paper aimed to offer insights for clinicians, educators, and policymakers, and suggested that recovery requires not only medical care but also a deeper psychological and cultural transformation.