A pilot controlled trial of a cognitive dissonance-based body dissatisfaction intervention with young British men

Abstract

This pilot study evaluated a body image intervention for men, Body Project M. Seventy-four British undergraduate men took part in two 90-min intervention sessions, and completed standardised assessments of body image, bulimic pathology, and related outcomes at baseline, post-intervention, and 3-month follow-up. Fifty-three other men completed the questionnaires as an assessment-only control group. Per-protocol analysis showed that Body Project M improved men's dissatisfaction with body fat and muscularity, body appreciation, muscularity enhancing behaviours, appearance comparisons, and internalization (ds=0.46-0.80) at post-intervention. All except dissatisfaction with muscularity and internalization were sustained at 3-month follow-up. No effects were found for bulimic pathology. Post-intervention effects for dissatisfaction with muscularity and internalization only were retained under intention-to-treat analysis. Participants were favourable towards the intervention. This study provides preliminary evidence for the acceptability and post-intervention efficacy of Body Project M. Further development of the intervention is required to improve and sustain effects.

Young men’s minimisation of their body dissatisfaction

“…This pre-existing intervention was developed after at least six independent research teams provided empirical evidence for the value of cognitive dissonance-based interventions (collectively labelled as The Body Project) in reducing body dissatisfaction and related outcomes among women (Stice, Rohde, Butryn, Shaw, & Marti, 2015). Recently, several studies have trialled dissonance-based body acceptance interventions among young adult men (Brown & Keel, 2015;Jankowski, Diedrichs, et al, 2017;Kilpela et al, 2016).…”

“…Men also completed self-report standardised quantitative questionnaires at baseline, post-intervention, and 3-month follow-up to assess the impact of the intervention on body dissatisfaction and related psychosocial outcomes. The quantitative evaluation of the intervention is reported in a separate paper (Jankowski, Diedrichs, et al, 2017).…”

A controlled trial of a dissonance-based eating disorders prevention program with Brazilian girls

“…This result replicates the effects observed in a trial from the UK (Halliwell et al, 2015), in which the body appreciation increased among the adolescent girls (14 and 15 years old) in the intervention group, with effects ranging from weak to intermediate (d = 0.51). This finding is important because few eating disorder prevention trials have measured positive body image (Halliwell et al, 2015;Jankowski et al, 2017). Thus, it provides evidence that dissonance-based programs, in addition to reducing pathological aspects, also promote positive attitudes toward one's body.…”

Greater body appreciation moderates the association between maladaptive attentional biases and body dissatisfaction in undergraduate women

“…Moreover, if body appreciation influences attentional biases related to body dissatisfaction, body appreciation may be an important protective factor to target in attention-related prevention efforts. For example, eating disorder preventive interventions have been found to increase self-reported body appreciation in high school girls (Halliwell, Jarman, McNamara, Risdon, & Jankowski, 2015), women over 25 with obesity (Olson, Thaxton, & Emery, 2018), and undergraduate men (Jankowski et al, 2017). Examination of the influence of body appreciation on maladaptive attentional biases related to body dissatisfaction provides direct evidence for the postulated moderation process whereby reduced attention to thin-ideal cues reduces the negative impact of thin-ideal media.…”