ABSTRACT
Despite the volume of popular and mainstream sociological interest in ‘the body’ in recent years, very little attention has been given either in the sociology of education or the literature on pedagogy as to how processes of schooling may be implicated in the aetiology and development of eating disorders. In this chapter, therefore, we draw upon the voices of a number of young women (aged 14-17) suffering from anorexia nervosa, in order to better understand the ways in which some complex, immediate and negative effects of informal and formal education inherent in the form, organisation, content of schooling may erode young women’s sense of competence, responsibility and control, propelling some towards disordered eating and serious ill-health.
