Contemporary reflections on ideals of the body and their unfolding in eating disorders

a psychoanalytic perspective

Abstract

Eating disorders have become increasingly prevalent in contemporary society, particularly among adolescents and young adults, who are immersed in a context marked by aesthetic pressure, the cult of the body, and the acceleration of social bonds. This scenario raises the following research question: how do contemporary cultural ideals permeate subjective constitution and contribute to the development of eating disorders? This study aims to reflect on the effects of these ideals on the development of different eating disorders from a psychoanalytic perspective by contextualizing contemporary issues, articulating theoretical contributions from psychoanalysis, and investigating the role of food as an object in the constitution of the subject. The study was conducted through a narrative literature review, based on a bibliographic survey carried out between March and November 2025 in databases such as PubMed, SciELO, and Google Scholar, in addition to classical and contemporary psychoanalytic works, prioritizing publications from the last twenty years. The results of the theoretical analysis indicate that eating disorders are multifactorial phenomena that cannot be reduced to nutritional or biomedical issues, but rather constitute singular modes of expressing psychological suffering, articulated with early life experiences and the aesthetic and cultural demands of contemporary society. The findings also show that the function of food extends beyond the biological domain, assuming a symbolic and relational role in the organization of the psyche, with the body frequently serving as the primary site for the inscription of psychological distress. It is concluded that psychoanalytic clinical practice constitutes a powerful avenue for listening to these individuals, enabling the symbolization of suffering condensed in the body and fostering the construction of new modes of subjectivation. These findings reinforce the need for clinical practices that are sensitive to the intersections between subject and culture, thereby contributing to the improvement of therapeutic interventions in response to the challenges posed by eating disorders in contemporary society.