Priorities aims to reduce body image concerns, prevent eating disorders, bolster self-esteem, and promote mental and emotional health by helping participants identify and nurture alternative sources of self-worth. Priorities would use group discussions, role-plays \& behavioral challenges, homework assignments \& letter-writing, and self-worth activism to achieve this. The Priorities intervention will be compared to The Body Project (an existing and successful harm reduction and eating disorder prevention program) for its effectiveness of reducing body image concerns and eating disorder outcomes. This study aims to evaluate whether there is a more effective eating disorder prevention program than The Body Project.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
90
Priorities aims to reduce body image concerns, prevent eating disorders, bolster self-esteem, and promote mental and emotional health by helping participants identify and nurture alternative sources of self-worth. Priorities would use group discussions, role-plays \& behavioral challenges, homework assignments \& letter-writing, and self-worth activism to achieve this. Priorities script: https://shorturl.at/UzWQG
The Body Project is the only ED prevention program that has repeatedly reduced future onset of EDs, produced effects when evaluated by independent researchers, produced stronger effects than credible alternative interventions, and affected objective outcomes (Stice et al., 2019). The Body Project is a dissonance-based ED prevention program wherein high-risk young women with body image concerns collectively critique pursuit of the thin appearance ideal in verbal, written, and behavioral exercises. It has produced greater reductions in risk factors (pursuit of the thin ideal, body dissatisfaction, dieting, negative affect), ED symptoms, and future ED onset over a 2- to 4-year follow-ups than assessment-only control conditions and alternative interventions in over 25 controlled trials (e.g., Becker et al., 2010; Ghaderi et al.,2020; Halliwell \& Diedrichs, 2014; Stice et al., 2000, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2017, 2020). Body Project Script: https://shorturl.at/6SSmP
Stanford University
Stanford, California, United States
Priorities Questionnaire- updated
Participants will be surveyed on the following measures before and after the intervention: self-report measure of weight/shape overvaluation, thin-ideal internalization, body dissatisfaction, harms from social media scale and mental health scales, depression questionnaire, anxiety questionnaire, PANAS scale for negative affect, as well as the self-report Eating Disorder Diagnostic Screen (assessing eating disorder symptoms using the Eating Disorder Diagnostic Survey (EDDS), a brief self-report scale. The EDDS symptom composite contains convergent validity with the Eating Disorder Diagnostic Interview (EDDI) as well as closely aligned diagnosis).
Time frame: Both Priorities and the Body Project consist of four 1-hour weekly sessions occurring over four weeks. The questionnaire will be administered at baseline (before session 1), post-test (after session 4), 1 month follow up, and 3 month follow up.
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