Drawing on her long-term research in this area, Professor Saukko will outline how this conventional diagnostic idea influences lived experiences, public understanding and treatment of eating disorders. 

Using the notion of “diagnostic overshadowing” – which focuses on a patient’s main diagnosis, bypassing other important considerations – she will explore what issues this approach highlights and what it silences. 

She will discuss how typical diagnostic notions critically interrogate gendered, social expectations affecting women – but also frame them as easily influenced and vain, overlooking other important issues, such as personal and social trauma as well as neurodivergence.

This will lead to an overview of how research into social media and eating disorders has often focused on its detrimental effects on body image, but not necessarily illuminated contradictory, creative and even helpful use of social media. 

Finally, she will introduce a new project that is investigating the problem of viewing people with eating disorders as rigid, manipulative and hard-to-treat. 

She will highlight how this attitude can lead to inpatient service users not been listened to, healthcare staff becoming exhausted and the care setting perceived as conflictual and futile. 

Closing on a positive note, she will present some ideas for moving towards more collaborative and compassionate care.