Achieving Body Confidence for Young Children (ABC-4-YC): Helping teachers promote a positive body image for 5- to 8-year-old children.

The evaluation of the ABC-4-YC program will be conducted as a cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT), whereby participating classes from each participating school will be randomly allocated to either receive the intervention or delayed intervention. Arm 1: ABC-4-YC intervention Children in intervention classes will receive the ABC-4-YC program at school as part of their classroom curriculum via 3 x 1 hour lessons during school hours, delivered over three consecutive days by their regular classroom teacher. Each ABC-4-YC lesson entails reading the children’s storybook Your Body Is Brilliant: Body Respect for children, which aims to teach children about appreciated diversity in body shapes and sizes and respecting and appreciating their own body’s functions. This is followed by class discussions and an individual worksheet activity that aim to help children appreciate differences in their body, celebrate their unique qualities, and appreciate the functionality of their body. One lesson also involves a dance and move activity whereby children listen to a body positive song, and a short video summarising the key messages of the program lessons. Teachers in the intervention condition will receive a 2-hour face-to-face professional development workshop and teacher handbook and a children's story book to guide the delivery of the ABC-4-YC program in their classroom. The teacher workshop will be delivered by the Chief Investigator who has a PhD in the area of psychology, and is the first author of the ABC-4-YC program materials. Arm 2: Delayed intervention Children in the control condition will only be asked to complete interviews. Teachers in the control condition will receive a brief online video informing them about the research and will only be asked to complete questionnaires. All child participants will complete interviews and teacher participants will complete questionnaires at baseline, post-test, and 6 week follow-up. Parents of children will complete one questionnaire at baseline. To measure fidelity, a member of the research team will attend at least one lesson from each intervention teacher participant and complete an observation checklist to assess completion of activities, fidelity to the teacher handbook guidelines, and student participation. Intervention teachers will also complete a feedback questionnaire at post-test to assess the degree of completion of program activities and response from their students.