Your Body Is Your Home: The feasibility of an intuitive eating intervention for early adolescents

Intuitive eating (IE) is an emerging health promotion framework which has shown promise in the prevention and early intervention of disordered eating (DE) behavior in adults. This study sought to extend this work by assessing the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a 5-week IE intervention, "Your Body is Your Home," delivered in school classrooms for early adolescents aged 11-13.

The present study utilized a quasi-experimental design. Eligibility criteria were defined a priori and published in a registered protocol. Four classrooms (n = 128 student participants) were recruited into two streams, and self-report questionnaires were administered at pre-test, post-test, and 4-week follow-up. The questionnaires included the Intuitive Eating Scale for Early Adolescents (IES-2-EA), the Body Appreciation Scale (BAS-2), and the WHO Wellbeing Index (WHO-5). Linear mixed models were used to conduct preliminary efficacy testing.

The results indicate that a brief classroom-based IE intervention is feasible and acceptable for both students and teaching staff; retention, fidelity, and attendance targets were achieved. Students and teachers rated all five sessions of the intervention as a highly feasible method of health promotion. Further, preliminary efficacy data suggest IE interventions aimed at early adolescents may be a feasible way of improving certain aspects of IE (p < .001) in male and female participants, and body appreciation (p < .001) in male participants.

The study provides preliminary support for the implementation and evaluation of an IE intervention as part of school-based health promotion and offers preliminary effect size estimates for a larger-scale randomized trial.

Existing evidence suggests that IE may be a useful framework through which relationships with food and the body can be improved. The present study seeks to extend this work by adapting the framework for early adolescents (among whom the framework is not well understood) and examining feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary changes to several health and well-being metrics following a 5-week school-based intervention.