Evaluating the Impact of Body Image Edutainment on Adolescent Girls' Body Image

Summary

Body image is one of the leading concerns for young people. These concerns may can have serious consequences, including anxiety, depression, risk taking behaviours, eating disorders and suicidal ideation.

An extensive body of research highlights the negative effects associated with viewing idealistic media among adolescents. More recently, research has looked at harnessing media and technology to develop and disseminate material that counteracts these harmful effects. Using 'edutainment' (entertainment with educational content) to develop and disseminate interventions is a novel avenue of research. Micro-interventions (brief, low intensity, self-administered interventions), offer an alternative to traditional, intense interventions that may be unsuitable for milder concerns. Body image micro-interventions have proven effective at providing immediate and short-term improvements in body image among women. To date, body image micro-interventions have been focused on adult samples, with little research exploring how this intervention model may cater to adolescents.

The aim of the present study is to conduct a randomised controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of a brief body image video micro-intervention to improve body image and acceptance of appearance diversity among girls, in addition to appearance-related internalised racism among the Black subgroup of girls.

The body image video micro-intervention is a 3-minute episode from Girls Room; a mini-series developed to address risk factors for body image. The series was developed through a collaboration between Lena Waithe, Dove (Unilever) and the Centre for Appearance.

The comparison control group will watch a 3-minute episode from an equivalent popular series which does not contain any appearance-related content.

In addition to the outcomes of interest, post-video acceptability checks will also be assessed to determine viewers' enjoyment, engagement, and identification with the video, as well as their intent to re-engage and share.

To undertake this project, 1848 adolescent girls will be recruited via an external research agency. Female-identifying North American citizens, aged 12-18 years old will be recruited, stratified to include 50% Black and 50% non-Black adolescents. The participants will be randomised to watch either the Girls Room episode, or control episode, at either 25%, 50% or 100% length of exposure. Before watching the video, they will complete baseline measures of demographics, state body satisfaction, acceptance of diversity of appearance, and appearance-related internalised racism (Black girls only). They will then be exposed to the video, before completing the measures again (post-exposure), along with acceptability checks. Participants will then be provided with a debrief of study aims and a list of support sources.

Conditions

• Body Image
• Eating Disorder Symptom

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Girl's room video

Girls Room, a body image mini-series, developed in collaboration with Lena Waithe, Dove and CAR. Video content was informed by empirical evidence related to body image prevention and intervention. The series consists of five, 3-minute videos. The videos follow the lives of a 5 best friends, and each video targets a key risk factor for body image: 1. Appearance comparison 2. Body appreciation 3. Body talk 4. Body functionality 5. Appearance teasing \& bullying 6. Appearance focus The five videos aired on Instagram TV (IGTV) in March 2020.

OTHER

Control video - Chicken Girls

Chicken Girl's Episode - appearance neutral episode matched for target audience and video length

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Unilever R&D

  collaborator INDUSTRY

• University of the West of England

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

12 Years

Max Age

18 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2020-10-06

Primary Completion

2021-05-28

Completion

2021-09-25

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations