An open invitation to productive conversations about feminism and the spectrum of eating disorders (part 2): Potential contributions to the science of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.

Abstract

The role of feminism in eating disorders research, treatment, and advocacy continues to be debated, with little agreement in sight about the role—or lack thereof—of feminist eating disorders work. In these debates, the opportunity to open fruitful conversations about eating disorders that generate new possibilities for researching, treating, and preventing them is missed. This article is the second in a series of two papers that invite such a discussion. In this article, we focus on five key contributions that feminist eating disorder work has made and can make moving forward. These are contextualizing treatment, attending to lived experiences, expanding the meanings of “sociocultural influences,” diversifying methodologies, and situating recoveries. We do not propose to offer a “final word” on feminisms and eating disorders, but instead to start conversations about how we understand, research, and treat eating disorders.