Eating Disorders and Disordered Eating in Older Adults: A Scoping Review Protocol

This scoping review aims to map and synthesize existing literature on eating disorders and disordered eating in older adults, with a focus on highlighting concepts, patterns, gaps and key findings. There is variability in how 'older adults’ are defined across existing academic and policy literature; while the United Nations (UNHCR,2024) identifies older adults as people over 60, the US-based National Institutes of Health (2024) defines them as individuals over 65 years old. As such, one of the objectives of this research is to examine how existing literature on eating disorders and disordered eating in this population conceptualizes old age and at what point this begins. This scoping review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current landscape of research conducted on the topic of EDs (including EDs, disordered eating, and body and weight concerns) along with the conceptualization of old age to better inform future studies.