In the autumn of 2022, my dissertation student Ria Amirapu did just that. She had started her studies during the Covid-19 Pandemic and had witnessed the effects of the lockdowns on her Indian friends and family. In particular, she noticed that her female friends were struggling with the level of scrutiny they received from their parents if they lived in with them – mostly comments about food and exercise. Ria wondered if this might have to do with India’s paternalistic culture where parents traditionally have more input in their children’s lives, and where daughters in particular are encouraged to fit a certain beauty standard (slim and fair skinned) to be ‘marriage material’. During the pandemic, people lived in close quarters with limited freedom. Students who previously had lived on their own in halls might have moved back in with their parents to save money as all the teaching was online. For female Indian students, this would have meant moving from relative autonomy back to the watchful eye of their parents, who would be monitoring how much they ate and exercised.
Ria turned these observations and thoughts into a research project, where she interviewed 10 female Indian students about their pandemic experiences. They were keen to talk and interviews were long and in-depth.
Together, Ria and I analysed the data using a method called ‘Thematic Analysis’, which involves reducing the interview transcripts to a set of ‘themes’. It was important that we did this together, to bring both our perspectives to the table.
Our participants showed us that they all experienced India’s paternalistic culture strongly in their lives, which formed the backdrop to what happened during the pandemic: moving back in with their parents meant they received comments about how much they ate and how they looked. Initially, participants tried to resist this, but over time they lost the battle and went along with what their parents wanted them to do. They also started to believe that what their parents said about their appearance, was true. As a result, they became quite resentful of their parents and moved out as soon as the pandemic restrictions were lifted. Several of the participants said that as a result of the interview, they had decided to engage in conversation with their parents about this to explain how they felt.
Our research is important because negative comments from friends and family about how you look can contribute to developing eating disorders, or make them worse. Our study showed that female Indian students might be particularly vulnerable. At University we have Counsellors who see students about wide-ranging problems, including eating disorders. Having knowledge about Indian culture will help them ask better questions during the sessions and students are more likely to feel understood.
Read the full study here.
Find out about the School of Psychology researchers behind it:
You can contact Apoorva (Ria) Amirapu by email at: Apoorva.amirapu@outlook.com
