Reducing maladaptive weight management practices: developing a psychoeducational intervention program

Previous research has addressed the issues of behavior change and eating disorder prevention among adolescents and young women. The current study was designed to evaluate: (a) whether an 8-week psychoeducational intervention can reduce maladaptive weight-management practices in women (University females, N=24) with sub-clinical levels of eating pathology; and (b) whether its implementation reduces the risk of developing more severe eating pathology across time. Participants were randomly assigned to an experimental (EX) group or a self-monitoring control (SMC) group. Statistically significant changes on measures of eating pathology, including the Eating Attitudes Test-26 [Garner, D. M., Olmsted, M. P., Bohr, Y., & Garfinkel, P. (1982). The Eating Attitudes Test: psychometric features and clinical correlates. Psychological Medicine, 12, 871-878]; Forbidden Food Survey [Ruggerio, L., Williamson, D. A., Davis, C. J., Schlundt, D. G., & Carey, M. P. (1988). Forbidden Food Survey: Measure of bulimic's anticipated emotional reactions to specific foods. Addictive Behaviors, 13, 267-274]; and Bulimia Test-Revised [Thelen, M. H., Farmer, J., Wonderlich, S., & Smith, M. (1991). A revision of the bulimia test: The BULIT-R. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 3(1), 119-124] were observed, as were changes in body image, as measured by the Body Shape Questionnaire [Cooper, P. J., Taylor, M. J., Cooper, Z., & Fairburn, C. G. (1987). The development and validation of the body shape questionnaire. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 6(4), 485-494]. Additional significant between-group differences in eating behavior, as measured by daily meal records, were also seen. Participants in the EX group evidenced improvements in scores which were significantly different from those observed in the SMC group. Unfortunately, attrition limited the utility of follow up data.