A preventative intervention program was administered to a non-clinical population deemed at risk for the development of eating disorders. Two-hundred and three women from a large southwestern state university who belonged to four campus sororities participated in the intervention. Members of the two sorority houses served as the control group while members of the other two houses served as the experimental group during the eight-week intervention. The intervention consisted of five workshops involving risk factors identified with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. The intervention included workshops on basic information on eating disorders, exercise, stress management, nutrition, self-esteem, and body image. Compared to the control group, the experimental group displayed significantly lower scores on the Ineffectiveness sub-scale and the Bulimia sub-scale of the Eating Disorder Inventory. The present study demonstrated that a population highly susceptible to disordered eating, was open to and positively affected by, an intervention procedure.

Background: Although there is extensive evidence for the efficacy of online eating disorder (ED) prevention programs in clinical trials, these programs have rarely been adopted beyond the trial phase and offered to a wider audience. As risk factors for eating disorders are partly associated with overweight and overweight in turn is correlated to disordered eating, this study will offer a combined eating disorder prevention program which also promotes a balanced lifestyle to normal weight and overweight individuals alike. The efficacy of the program has been proven in previous trials. The study aims to evaluate the dissemination of a combined eating disorder prevention and health promotion program (everyBody) to women of all age groups and varying levels of ED risk status in the general population. Methods: A dissemination trial will be conducted in German-speaking countries, including 4160 women from the general population. Participants will be screened to exclude participants who are likely to have an ED. Eligible participants will be allocated to one of five program arms based on their BMI and respective ED symptoms. The guided program consists of 4 to 12 weeks of weekly sessions offering CBT-based exercises, psychoeducational material, self-monitoring, and group discussions. Outcomes will be assessed according to the RE-AIM model, including measures of effectiveness, reach, adoption, implementation, and maintenance of the program. Discussion/conclusions: This trial aims to disseminate a combined ED prevention and health promotion program in the general population, offering universal, selective and indicated prevention in one program. To our knowledge, it is the first trial to systematically evaluate dissemination efforts based on the RE-AIM model. This trial will be conducted as part of the EU-funded ICare (Integrating Technology into Mental Health Care Delivery in Europe) project.

The purpose of this study was to develop, implement, and evaluate a primary and secondary prevention program for eating disorders. The intervention program in this study was adapted from a peer leader intervention similar to Kelly et al.'s (1992) AIDS prevention program. Four sorority houses comprised the sites used to test the effectiveness of the prevention program using a quasi-experimental wait-list control design. Participants in each house completed assessments of dieting behavior, dietary restraint, body image esteem, and health behavior self-efficacy on two occasions. Two sororities received the peer leader preventive intervention between these testing times while the other two sororities served as controls. The experimenter hypothesized the intervention would decrease dieting behavior and dietary restraint while increasing body image esteem and self-efficacy for health behavior. To improve upon a previous pilot study, sororities were selected over female dormitories. Several factors led to the selection of the sorority houses rather than the dormitories. First, the diffusion of innovations model from which the peer leader program was developed assumes a closed cohesive group of individuals so the intervention can diffuse throughout the community. Second, the experimenter hypothesized that members of sororities would report higher rates of dieting relative to females who live in dormitories. Thus, sororities were selected as intervention sites since their members are self-selected into a cohesive group and they are potentially at a higher risk for developing eating disorders. Peer leaders were selected from experimental sorority houses and trained to advocate no-dieting, healthy eating, and exercise for sorority members living in their house (i.e., primary prevention). These peer leaders were also trained to make effective treatment referrals for students with existing eating problems (i.e., secondary prevention). Manipulation checks suggested the training program for selected peer leaders was successful and that peer leaders effectively implemented the program via conversations in the experimental sorority houses. Community posttest analyses were conducted to determine intervention effectiveness after the pretest analyses showed the groups did not differ. Community analyses at posttest suggested peer leaders benefited slightly from their training program. However, no significant differences were found between experimental participants and control participants. However, there was a minimal dose-response relationship for the intervention. Participants who knew the meaning of the Don't Diet symbol used in the intervention at posttest (i.e., implying they received a stronger dose of the intervention) were dieting less according to some variables than participants who did not know the meaning of the symbol. Participants who knew the meaning of the symbol also reported significantly greater body image esteem and self-efficacy for exercise. In conclusion, although the effects of the intervention were not significant at the community level between experimental and control sororities for the hypothesized variables using the planned analyses, exploratory post-hoc analyses showed some positive effects for a subset of participants who were more knowledgeable about the intervention program. / Ph. D.