In Memory of Boodie (April 2001 - November 2012)

  
This picture shows a parent in the act of physically disciplining a child, and one’s individual emotional reaction to this behavior will depend, in part, on one’s own cultural bias.

What is meant by the term: “Cultural Bias”?

BIAS is a preconception that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation.

CULTURE is a rough label for a set of characteristics (beliefs, practices, and values) that a group of people tend to have in common. There are also cultures within cultures. For example, the American Culture is a subgroup of the Western Culture, and there are many cultural subgroups within the American Culture.

Cultural differences exist even within subgroups of middle-class Americans.
Some of these subgroups are different due to locational or environmental differences such as northerners, southerners, easterners, westerners, or country, city, suburban; some of these subgroups are different because of educational, economic, religious or political differences; some subgroups are different because of the race or the nationality of one’s ancestors, etc. etc. etc.

Cultural values, attitudes and behaviors prominently influence how a given group of people view, understand, process, communicate, and manage data, information, and knowledge.

CULTURE been defined as a kind of collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group from another. In essence, the content of culture consists of a set of underlying norms and values of behavior, shared by a group of people who are tied together by powerful affiliations or bonds.

Cultural differences can be understood as CULTURAL BIAS, a bias so deeply ingrained that it is unconscious, unless explicitly examined.

The term CULTURAL BIAS is defined as interpreting and judging things in terms particular to one's own culture, which includes attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, and social practices.

 Cultural bias occurs when people of one culture make assumptions, because they interpret and judge things by their own cultural standards.

Cultural Bias means that a culture’s views are in fact different from, and in conflict with, another culture’s views. Cultural bias involves a prejudice in viewpoint because of a preference of one’s own culture over another. Difference does not imply unfairness. It would be stupid to deny that all people are subject to cultural bias. Cultural bias is simply the tendency to interpret and judge things by standards inherent in one's own culture. We all do it to some extent. It's a given.

Ethnocentrism is a the belief that ones own cultural group is superior. That one’s own cultural beliefs etc. are normal and that others are abnormal.

Ethnocentrism leads us to make false assumptions about cultural differences.  We are ethnocentric when we use our cultural norms to make generalizations about other people’s cultures and customs. Such generalizations ─ often made without a conscious awareness that we've used our culture as a universal yardstick ─ can be very inaccurate and cause us to misjudge other people’s culture and customs. Ethnocentrism also distorts communication between human beings.

We often (incorrectly) assume that other cultural groups share our view of what is ‘normal’, e.g. in terms of accepted methods in areas such as those of conflict resolution, child discipline, dating behaviors, eating behaviors, manners, including table manners, and age-appropriate activities.

One large example of cultural bias is that mainstream Western culture values individualism and sees the individual as the basic unit. However, many other cultural groups operate on a more communal paradigm and hence family expectations and family loyalties may override individual needs. Similarly, mainstream Western culture assumes that independence is desirable and that dependence is undesirable; hence psychological “experts” may even tend to view family life in some cultural groups as being ‘enmeshed and pathological’.

Here in the United States, the issue of cultural bias often goes unrecognized and unacknowledged. People in positions of power, such as  Judges, Educators, Psychologists, Healthcare Professionals, Politicians, Law Enforcement, and the Media  often belong to cultural subgroups which have very different values than the cultural subgroups over which their power is exercised. They tend to push their own values on those subgroups, forcing others to follow the rules of behavior that they set forth. Frequently this happens with the best of intentions, similar to the way Western Missionaries brought “Civilization” to the “Savages”, which included requiring the native women to wear more clothing.

Cultural bias exists everywhere.
It is  something that a person needs to be aware of, and to watch for,
when one is interested in trying to be as objective as possible, 

                                                      
Marketing interests foster the belief that all we have to do is use their product to “get the excess weight off”. They'll kiss our behinds, not because they care about us, but to get our money.

I use the term “marketing interest” to define someone who has a product or an idea that they would like to make financially profitable. It could be a food, a drug or supplement, a book or other publication, a diet organization, an exercise machine, an event such as a marathon, personal services like a trainer or nutritionist, a politician, or even …. gasp!… a medical doctor or facility with a specialization involving the condition of obesity.

Advertising also now gives a more positive spin on this process by substituting the term “get healthy” for “lose weight”; thereby making certain that the concept Slim equals Healthy, and Fat equals Sick. During the past several decades, this language has been adopted by popular culture, which was an extremely successful marketing ploy. It has resulted in the majority of society … including those in the medical profession …now accepting that concept as an absolute Truth of Life. An informed person who dares to question the basic reality of that premise now faces mass opposition.

Most of us who struggle with obesity, desperately want to be “normal weight”.
We want to be “attractive”, “trim”, “fit”, “toned” and “healthy”.
We want an easy way to accomplish that goal. A way that doesn’t take much thought or a lot of time and effort. We want it to come “naturally”. So, we are easily seduced by the false promises of a simple, effortless way.   We can also be seduced into agreeing to make a lot of effort for a very limited time.

Phrased anyway you like, essentially, this is a lie.
And, not a “harmless” lie, but to use a term I frequently heard as a child…
It’s a lie “straight from the pits of Hell”.
As long as we believe there is….somewhere….an easy way, it becomes almost impossible to commit oneself to the hard work and constant struggle that it takes for weight-loss and maintenance of that weight-loss.

People who are clearly fat commonly express the concept that that they
don’t want Thoughts about Weight/Food/Exercise to "Rule their Life".

I have no way to help anyone toward that Goal of Mindlessness,
because Thoughts about Weight/Food/Exercise have ALWAYS "Ruled MY Life."
I'm not a person with the genetics it takes to be naturally thin, or even naturally normal-weight.  I did not spend any less time Thinking about those issues when I was Fat than I do now.  The difference is that when I was Fat my Thoughts were not accompanied by consistent Action, while during my weight-loss period ...and now inside Maintenance...
my Thoughts about those issues now tend to be productive and positive.

Sometimes, ... if we choose to ...  we can make hard work enjoyable, and that is the direction I’ve chosen to take with my dieting hobby.

Sometimes, here on DietHobby,  
I choose to share videos that I find personally amusing.

Here's an "infomercial"  that is twisted, horrifically offensive, totally inappropriate,
............. and yet hilarious.

It made me laugh, and maybe that's good enough for today.
If you aren't easily offended, and want a chuckle,
click to expand this article and watch the video "Naptime"  just below.

For those interested, here's a link to my latest video,
"R U a Good Guest? - Ask Grandma - Episode Forty-five".
which has now been posted here at DietHobby in the GRANDMA section,
and is located in the Ask Grandma category. 

This video was taken on the patio in my back yard.  The pink flowering tree
is a stencil painting that I painted there about ten years ago.