Treating depression in Muslim communities: Meta-analysis of three trials of culturally adapted behavioural activation for Muslims (BA-M).

Eating disorders are complex mental illnesses affecting approximately 30 million Americans [, ]. Research has identified many risk factors, ranging from individual to sociocultural believed to contribute to the development of eating disorders [, , ]. Historically, research has taken a quantitative approach [] and tends to focus on anorexia nervosa [] (for exceptions see [, ]). To deepen extant knowledge, our study explores a spectrum of eating disorders, takes a qualitative research approach, and focuses on eating disorder onset. Likewise, research on risk factors has tended to prioritize "expert" voices, including those of researchers and clinicians [], over those with lived experience's descriptions of causes []. Unsettlingly, individuals with eating disorders have been found to hold different perceptions regarding the cause of their condition than individuals without an eating disorder []. This limited and potentially problematic focus becomes especially pertinent when investigating women with eating disorders because they have traditionally been oppressed and subjected to retaining a non-dominant status in many cultural contexts (along social, economic, and political lines []). We challenge these persistent gender power gaps and instead value women as experts of their own lives rather than merely objects of inquiry. In doing so, this study contributes to a growing body of literature centering the voices of individuals with lived experience of eating disorders (e.g., []). The aim of this article is to qualitatively explore the perceived origins of eating disorders from the perspective of women with lived experience. This study holds both academic and practical significance. Academically, this study advances eating disorder research in five ways. It extends research on eating disorder causes, advances the area’s feminist efforts, increases lived experience perspectives, accelerates the area’s reflexive turn, and addresses diverse eating disorder experiences. Practically, study results hold utility for women with eating disorders and eating disorder professionals by better contextualizing women’s eating disorder beginnings and aiding in sense-making.