Overvaluation of Weight and Shape Intervention vs The Body Project

Summary

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.

Conditions

• Body Image
• Mental Health Outcomes
• Eating Disorders
• Body Dysmorphic Disorders
• Self-esteem

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Priorities

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

BEHAVIORAL

Body Project

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

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Stanford University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Eric Stice, PhD · Stanford University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

14 Years

Max Age

22 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2026-07-01

Primary Completion

2026-12-30

Completion

2027-06-01

Countries

• United States

Study Locations