Prevention of eating disorders: 2025 in review

This review of 15 prevention-related publications in Eating Disorders during 2025 is framed by three models: (1) Mental Health Intervention Spectrum: health promotion → types of prevention → case identification/referral for treatment; (2) the prevention cycle: rationale and theory, shaped by critical reviews → clarifying risk and protective factors → program innovation and feasibility studies → efficacy and effectiveness research → program dissemination; and (3) definitions of and links between eating disorder psychopathology, disordered eating behavior, and eating disorders. Four articles were categorized as prevention theory, methodology, or ethics; three articles were categorized as prevention rationale (including screening studies); six articles addressed correlates and putative risk factors for eating disorders or eating pathology; and one article each addressed protective factors and the upscaling/adaptation of the Body Project prevention program, respectively. Seven implications for prevention improvement are presented. For example, we must do more than acknowledge a spectrum of disordered eating. In many countries, eating pathology in girls and boys is a pressing public health problem that is almost certainly in place before age 13. Consequently, the developmental trajectories of eating pathology in children and adolescence, and the creation of effective school-based prevention programs for youth ages 10 through 15, are two under-studied areas that deserve research priority.