Editorial: Critical Eating Dis/Order Studies: Madly Questioning Eating Orders

This Special Issue: “Critical Eating Dis/Order Studies: Madly Questioning Eating Orders” is an introduction and invitation into thinking through and with CEDS. What we are calling Critical Eating Dis/Order Studies offers a transdisciplinary space of social action that works to bridge the academic-community divide, is supported by the leadership of Mad and other eating order resisters, and co-builds toward futures where eating orders cease to systemically shape our everyday lives. Knowledges created by those who are labelled as “mentally ill” are routinely debased and silenced inside and outside the academy (Leblanc & Kinsella, 2016) – an ongoing lived reality for those of us who are deemed to be “eating disordered.” We are stereotyped as uncredible, untrustworthy, and incapable of making our own decisions or having a valid perspective (Holmes et al., 2021; Lester, 2019; Malson et al., 2011; Schott & Langan, 2015; Schott, Spring & Langan, 2016). These prevalent beliefs are used to silence us while justifying forced compliance in ways that maintain – and make more possible – the systemic abuses of power that are hurting us (Kendall, 2014; Schott, 2022; Schott, 2024; Schott & Langan, 2024). Against the – monocropping – grain, and towards radical change led by eating dis/order communities, we embrace Mad eating dis/order knowledge producers and artistic creators as valid, valuable, and vital.