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Eating disorders are debilitating psychiatric conditions which often result in severe impairment in many life domains. The sociocultural model specifies mechanisms through which sociocultural pressure leads to eating pathology among young women (Stice, 1994) and posits that exposure to the Western cultural thin ideal, internalization of the ideal and experience of a difference between self and ideal leads to body dissatisfaction, which is a well validated precursor to eating pathology. The current research examined whether the relationships between awareness of Western appearance ideals, internalization of such ideals, and body dissatisfaction were moderated by family food-related experiences and self-compassion. The current paper also investigated whether the strength of relationships between awareness of Western appearance ideals, internalization of such ideals, and body dissatisfaction are affected by certain types of family food-related experiences. Female university students (N = 106) completed self-report questionnaires. Results indicated that mindfulness, a constituent of self-compassion, moderated the relationship between internalization of cultural thinness standards and body dissatisfaction. In addition, self-compassion, each component of self-compassion and women’s perception of negative maternal family food-related experiences predicted internalization of Western societal norms of thinness, as well as body dissatisfaction. Moreover, women’s perception of negative paternal family food-related experiences predicted body dissatisfaction. Women’s perception of negative maternal commentary predicted internalization of Western beauty standards and body dissatisfaction. Finally, women’s perception of negative paternal commentary and paternal modelling of eating difficulties and body image concerns predicted internalization of those values. Future research should attempt to clarify causal relationships among self-compassion and family food-related experiences within the sociocultural model of eating disorders.

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Clinical and subclinical eating pathology are common, especially among female undergraduates. Such problems are often chronic and associated with a range of negative medical and psychological outcomes. Thus, it is important to develop effective prevention programs to reduce eating disorder risk. Numerous studies suggest that dissonance-based prevention programs are the most successful in reducing eating disorder risk factors, however, such programs might not be convenient for students limited by scheduling restraints or geographic proximity. Further, some students may be reluctant to attend such groups due to lack of anonymity. One way to address these potential barriers is to adapt dissonance-based programs for online use. However, no extant studies have examined the feasibility of this mode of delivery for dissonance-based programs. The current study examined the effectiveness of an online dissonance-based program, and compared it with traditional face-to-face delivery and assessment-only control conditions. It was hypothesized that: 1) online and face-to-face dissonance programs would produce comparable results; and 2) both of these active treatments would yield improvements in eating disorder outcomes (e.g. reduced thin ideal internalization, body dissatisfaction, dieting, negative affect, and eating disorder symptoms) compared with an assessment-only control condition. Results partially supported the original hypotheses. Modified intent-to-treat analyses (MITT) indicated that participants in both the face-to-face and online intervention groups showed less body dissatisfaction at post-intervention assessment compared to assessment only participants. Further, when analyses were conducted using a non-intent-to-treat (non-ITT) approach (examining only the outcomes of participants who completed the intervention), significant post-intervention differences were observed for all outcome variables. Specifically, individuals in both intervention groups showed lower thin-ideal internalization, body dissatisfaction, restraint, negative affect, and fewer eating disorder symptoms compared to assessment only participants. This study indicates that there may be some promise in adapting dissonance-based eating disorder prevention programs for online use. Future studies should continue to refine online adaptations of such programs and examine the effects of such programs with different populations.