Challenging What We Know About OSFED and UFED with Dr Ruth Cruickshank

Challenging What We Know About OSFED and UFED with Dr Ruth Cruickshank

From The Full of Beans Podcast by Hannah Hickinbotham

June 22, 2026 · 43 min · Season 1 · Episode 275

About this episode

This episode features Dr Ruth Cruickshank discussing the overlooked eating disorders OSFED and UFED and their implications.

Have you ever felt like your eating disorder didn't have a name, or that what you were going through just didn't quite fit? This episode is for you. This week on the Full of Beans Podcast , I'm joined by Dr Ruth Cruickshank, Associate Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London. Ruth has a background in French literature, but has carved out a truly unique space in eating disorder research, using her expertise in critical reading, food studies and her own lived experience of OSFED to ask the questions that others simply aren't asking. Ruth is the only academic in the humanities working on OSFED, and she is doing extraordinary work to challenge why the most common eating disorder diagnosis remains so systemically overlooked. In this episode, we explore: How Ruth's career took her from French literature and advertising to eating disorder research How representations of food in fiction carry deeper psychological and cultural meanings What OSFED is and why it matters that so many people have never heard of it Why OSFED and UFED remain under-researched despite being the most common eating disorder diagnoses The danger of diagnostic criteria focused on weight and behaviour rather…

People in this episode

Host: Hannah Hickinbotham

Guest: Dr Ruth Cruickshank

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Royal Holloway, University of London

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