Mainstream and post-postivist approaches to psychological research are compared with regard to healthy eating and eating disorders. The tendency of the mainstream operationally to define key concepts is contrasted with the post-positive preference for conceptual analysis and an example of this is considered in relation to theory of planned behaviour research. The reason why the search for a causal mechanism for major eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa has proved unfruitful becomes transparent once the phenomena are construed as action, as opposed to behaviour. Some of the methodological problems and issues arising within the post-positivist approaches are discussed using illustrative examples of autoethnographic research into eating episodes.
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