Representations of anorexia in an EAP classroom: critically engaging with the body and its discourses Christian W. Chun Department of Applied Linguistics, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA ABSTRACT Aside from mentioning possible issues of hidden identities and curri- culum development relating to anorexia, little research has been done exploring how discourses of eating disorders and images of the body have been mediated by teachers and learners in the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classroom. Drawing upon an ethnographic EAP classroom case study, this article explores how particular meanings of anorexia were framed, discussed, and challenged in this classroom context by an instructor and her students engaged with discourses surrounding eating disorders in a YouTube video, Anorexia: The 10 Most Common Misconceptions about Eating Disorders. I employ a mediated discourse nexus analysis approach to examine the ways in which the teacher and her students differentiated between facts and opinions presented in the video, and the critical engagements with the various representations of eating disorders and the accompanying discourses of the body in different societies. KEYWORDS Mediated discourse analysis; EAP; anorexia; critical pedagogy 1. Introduction Aside from mentioning possible issues of hidden identities (Vandrick 1997) and curricu- lum development (Benesch 1996) relating to anorexia nervosa, little research has been done exploring how dominant discourses on eating disorders and images of the body have been mediated by teachers and learners in the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classroom. Drawing upon an eleven-month long ethnographic EAP classroom case study, this article explores how particular meanings of anorexia nervosa situated in socialised contexts of race, gender, and class were framed, discussed, and debated as either fact or opinion in this classroom milieu by examining how an instructor and her students addressed particular discourses from a video posted on YouTube, entitled Anorexia: The 10 Most Common Misconceptions about Eating Disorders. Classroom dialogic engagements with various hegemonic discourses, be it on race, gender, sexuality, class, religion, and/or other issues impacting and shaping our lived identities, provide opportunities to both teachers and students to draw on various critical pedagogy approaches in the English language learning (ELL) classroom (e.g., Benesch 2006; Chun 2015, 2016, 2019a; Janks 2012; Morgan 1998, 2009; Morgan and Ramanathan 2005; Norton and Toohey 2004). The use of these approaches should not be viewed as imposing any ‘agenda’ by critically-oriented or interested teachers (Chun 2015). Rather, CONTACT Christian W. Chun christian.chun@umb.edu CLASSROOM DISCOURSE 2020, VOL. 11, NO. 2, 164–180 https://doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2020.1749681 © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group