Book Launch: The Construction of Eating Disorders

You are warmly invited to the launch of a new book by Dr Alison Fixsen.

📅 Date: 18th February
🕔 Time: 17:30–19:30
📍 Venue: The Pavilion

Alison will share key insights from her book, followed by a discussion and light refreshments.

Featuring original research, the book challenges the idea of disordered eating as a marginal issue. Disordered eating and the classification of eating disorders (EDs) reflect deep societal disruptions, regulatory practices, and attempts to manage non-conformity. Research often focuses on labelling individuals as medically "deviant,", promoting the belief that disorder originates within the individual and requires psychiatric treatment. This view neglects the influence of larger systemic forces—such as colonialism, capitalism, Western medical frameworks, the food industry, and media—on the development of eating disorders. Additionally, it fails to account for how structural inequalities, including socioeconomic disparities, ethnicity, food access, and social justice issues, shape patterns of disordered eating and contribute to the rising prevalence of EDs among marginalized communities. This insightful work will appeal to students and scholars of mental health, sociology, gender studies, food politics, and anyone interested in the future of health.

📚 The book is available for purchase through Springer Books, bookstores, or as an e-book.

We look forward to seeing you there!

About the speaker

Dr Alison Fixsen is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster, with an extensive background in health practice and research. Her published work spans a range of subjects related to mental health including eating disorders, psychoactive drug management and dependency, self-care and professional well-being initiatives and social prescribing.

Host or Publisher College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, UoW