3 - (SYM 18) Hypervisible in Society, Invisible in Eating Disorder Research: Assessment and Treatment Considerations for Arab/mena American Women

Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African (A-MENA) Americans are subject to intersectional discrimination and hate crimes (Shammas, 2017, Atari et al., 2018) yet lack visibility as a distinct identity in psychological research on the account of being labeled ‘White/Caucasian’ or lumped in with other racial/ethnic minority groups (Awad et al., 2022), furthering the health inequities for A-MENA mental health. Furthermore, A-MENA American women are even more widely underrepresented in eating disorder research; Melisse and colleagues (2020) address the presumed low rates of eating disorder symptoms in A-MENA women and note no studies that center A-MENA Americans. To that end, no study to date has examined the unique, culturally relevant factors that may implicate Arab/MENA American's eating disorder symptom presentation, as well as identity-related phenomena that may be protective or put them at risk for an eating disorder. The current study is a mixed-method, secondary analysis of Muslim (47.0 %) Arab/MENA American community women (N=244) who completed questionnaires on general eating disorder symptomatology (EDE-Q), negative emotional eating (EES-R) and body image (SATAQ-4). After, they provided reflective feedback on what items of each questionnaire would they change, add, and/or remove given their A-MENA American women identity. Inductive thematic analyses were conducted across each open-ended item (Forbes, 2021) with themes agreed upon at .90 kappa. Prevalence estimates were calculated on disordered eating attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors. In terms of the EDE-Q, themes regarding sociocultural predictors for eating disorder symptoms were revealed, such as bicultural identity (N=75), grandparent’s comments towards appearance (N=20), fasting for both shape/weight control and religious reasons (N=52), and removing the EDE-Q item (N=10). In terms of emotional eating, themes were generated in eating in response to racial and religious discrimination (N=21), as well as the emotion of shame (N=12). Lastly, in terms of the SATAQ-4, distress regarding moral incongruence of religious values and thin-ideal internalization (N=35). Overall, measurements commonly used to assess eating disorder symptoms and body-image concerns may not capture the full spectrum or nuance of eating attitudes and behaviors of Arab/MENA American women. Discussion will be provided on how these themes, combined with other features of Arab/MENA identity (Rouhani, et al., 2014) are not attenuated in traditional eating disorder assessment and treatment.