Julie Hepworth locates contemporary discourses of anorexia nervosa within their historical context, showing how current practices continue to be influenced by medicine, psychology, ideology and politics. She demonstrates that anorexia nervosa must be considered within the political, social and gendered relationships that continue to contribute to its definition. The book presents the need for a new conceptualization of anorexia nervosa which would draw on the insights of discourse theory, feminism and postmodernism to create new understandings of anorexia nervosa within contemporary health care practices.