City Research Online

Abstract

The appropriate form, regularity, and intensity of exercise for individuals recovering from eating disorders is not agreed upon among health care professionals or researchers. When exercise is permitted, it is that which is mindful, embodied, and non-competitive that is considered normative. Using Canguilhem’s concepts of “the normal and the pathological” as a theoretical frame, we examine the gendered assumptions that shape medical understandings of “healthy” and “dysfunctional” exercise in the context of recovery. The data set for this article comes from longitudinal semi-structured interviews with 19 women in the United Kingdom who engaged in weightlifting during their eating disorder recovery. We argue that women in recovery navigate multiple and conflicting value systems regarding exercise. Faced with aspects of exercise that are pathologized within the eating disorder literature (such as structure/routine, body transformations, and affect regulation), women re-inscribe positive value to these experiences, thus establishing exercise practices that serve them.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Lficense (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). © The Author(s) 2021.
Publisher Keywords:	eating disorder recovery, Georges Canguilhem, exercise, weightlifting, yoga, gender, normal, pathological, longitundinal qualitative interview, United Kingdom
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs School of Policy & Global Affairs > Department of Sociology & Criminology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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