The Body Project. The Body Project is a dissonance-based eating disorders prevention programme. It is a manualised evidence-based programme that targets eating pathology and body image dissatisfaction in young women. The objective of the programme is to create cognitive dissonance to encourage participants to decrease pursuing ideal-thinness. It includes group discussion, written and behavioural exercises and role-play to achieve cognitive dissonance (Stice, Rohde, & Shaw, 2013). It involves four group sessions for an hour each in consecutive weeks. At the beginning of each meeting, the facilitator reinforces voluntary commitment. Homework is explained and given at the end of each meeting and reviewed at the beginning of the following meeting.

References:

Stice, E., Rohde, P., Shaw, H. (2013). The body project a dissonance-based eating disorders prevention intervention (updated edition). New York: Oxford University Press.

The control group were asked to read educational material in Arabic about healthy nutrition and active lifestyle from the Saudi branch of the World Obesity Federation (Kayl Association for Combatting Obesity, 2021). The material includes information about body mass index; easy ways to measure food units without a scale; benefits of working out; means to adopt healthier daily habits; and healthier food alternatives. The material was chosen because it was designed to be easy to understand by any individual.

References:

Kayl Association for Combatting Obesity. (2021). Kayl association for combatting obesity. Retrieved from https://www.kayl.org.sa

The Body Project is a a selective dissonance-based prevention program that targets women with body image concerns. It has been developed with University and similar populations in mind, making it appropriate to the current research.The Body Project is based on a protocol, and aims to create cognitive dissonance that encourages participants to reduce pursuit of the thin-ideal. It involves the use of a scripted manual, covering four interactive weekly sessions. These involve role play, behavioural, verbal and written exercises.

The EDE-Q is a widely used self-report measure of eating disorder psychopathology (Fairburn & Beglin, 2008). It contains 28 items investigating eating disorder behaviours and attitudes during the past 28 days. It includes four subscales: dietary restraint; eating concerns; weight concerns; and shape concerns. The Global EDE-Q score (mean of the four attitudinal scores) and the scores of each subscales were used in this study. Higher scores indicate greater eating pathology. The scale was applied before and after the programme to assess outcomes.

Body image dissatisfactions was measured using the BSQ-8C, which is a short version of the full Body Shape Questionnaire (Evans & Dolan, 1993). A higher score indicates higher levels of body image dissatisfaction. The scale was applied before and after the programme to assess outcomes