Examining Racial Identity Invalidation, Curvy Ideal Internalization, and Maladaptive Orthorexia Symptoms in...

Black-White (B/W) multiracial women often experience racial identity invalidation (RII) due to holding races of opposite social status. Additionally, they may experience Eurocentric thinness pressures, while simultaneously navigating curvier body ideals valued in Black communities. B/W multiracial women's eating and embodiment remains largely under-researched. This study examined associations between RII, curvy ideal idealization (CII), and maladaptive orthorexia symptoms (MOSs), in addition to the indirect effects of RII on MOSs via CII in a sample of B/W multiracial cisgender women, N = 290 (M_Age = 34; range = 18-61). Participants completed an online survey through Prolific assessing demographics, RII, MOSs, and CII. Pearson's correlations demonstrated significant positive relationships between MOSs and RII distress, RII frequency, and CII-global; RII distress and CII-global, thick/curvy, and breast size; and RII frequency and CII-breast size. No significant associations emerged between RII frequency and CII-global, thick/curvy, and thin waist or RII distress and CII-thin waist. The indirect effect of RII distress on MOS via CII-global was the only significant pathway (β = 0.04, 95% CI: 0.01 to 0.07). The results call for the need to consider the internalization of opposing cultural body ideals and the experience of discriminatory stressors as potential clinically relevant sociocultural factors associated with orthorexic eating patterns in B/W multiracial women.