Two eating disorder preventive interventions reduce attentional biases in body-dissatisfied university women: A cluster randomized controlled trial.

Objective: This cluster randomized controlled trial evaluated the efficacy of participation in the Body Project-a cognitive-dissonance-based preventive intervention that reduces self-reported body dissatisfaction-for reducing body-dissatisfaction-related attentional biases. We hypothesized that women in a Body Project condition would show a greater reduction in attentional biases to weight-related images and words at postintervention than women in a wait-list control condition.

Method: Body-dissatisfied university women (N = 168; M_age = 20.50 ± 3.37 years; 42.0% White; M_BMI = 23.08 ± 4.45 kg/m²) were randomly assigned to a Body Project, media psychoeducation (i.e., active control), or wait-list control condition. We assessed attentional biases via eye-gaze tracking and body satisfaction using the Body Shape Questionnaire, at baseline and postintervention.

Results: Self-reported outcomes from previous literature were replicated. Compared to wait-list, Body Project participation reduced attention to images of thin models (ps < .05; ds = .19, .24), but not to weight-related words. Compared to wait-list, the media psychoeducation condition reduced attention to fat-related images and words (ds = .17, .18).

Conclusions: This study, which replicates previous self-report findings, is the first to find that two preventive interventions reduced an objective outcome (attentional bias to weight-related images) in body-dissatisfied women. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).