Eating disorders

Many groups affected by eating disorders have social and clinical needs that remain poorly understood. This includes individuals with specific conditions such as binge eating disorder and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, as well as those managing an eating disorder alongside another mental health challenge. Additionally, the experiences of older adults, men, people from ethnic minority backgrounds and migrant communities, neurodivergent individuals, those from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, and members of the LGBTQ+ community are often underrepresented in research and clinical practice.

These knowledge gaps prevent the design of appropriate, effective prevention strategies and clinical services.

Dr Anna Lavis from the University of Birmingham is carrying out a co-ordinated set of needs-led capacity building, networking, and research activities. These will be underpinned by anthropological theory and methods, with co-production at their core.

She aims to define research priorities in collaboration with people with lived experience, especially those underserved by eating disorder research to date. She also will work to ensure the field includes other disciplinary approaches that have the potential to generate crucial insights into prevention, treatment and outcomes.

Dr Lavis believes that anthropology is an ideal approach to explore how socio-cultural contexts and social and mental health inequalities shape illness and health experiences, as well as service access and engagement. She will draw together anthropological research with sustained and meaningful co-production, to co-create an agenda for research into eating disorders. Led by the lived experiences, needs and priorities of people who have been largely overlooked in the eating disorders research field, this agenda will have clinical relevance beyond the duration of this funding.