Delivering the Body Project @ Griffith University – an evaluation study among students

The Body Project is an eating disorder (ED) prevention program targeting young females with known risk factors, such as body dissatisfaction. It aims to reduce thin idealisation by challenging them to reduce the pursuit for this unrealistic ideal. The Body Project program is delivered in synchronous group format, online in one hour sessions, over 4 consecutive weeks by trained peer educators. Group sizes will ideally be ±5-6 participants per group, with a maximum of 8 participants and this will be delivered by two peer educators per group. Peer educators will be trained before participants are enrolled in the study, approximately one to two weeks prior. They will be required to review the training manual before the training, which will be delivered in two x 3-hour online sessions (similar to the delivery mode for this study) that will include role-play and practice of delivery. The training will be conducted by a highly experienced mental health clinician in youth mental health and eating disorders. She is a specialist therapist and clinical social worker trained to facilitate group therapy programs including the Body Project external to Griffith University. We will also train a senior Griffith University Counsellor with the Counselling and Wellbeing team, who will support the peer educators and the participants as required throughout the study. The topics addressed in the four weeks include the following content: Session 1 topics - introducing the program, voluntary commitment and overview, definition and origin of the thin ideal, costs associated with the thin ideal and homework. Session 2 topics - reinforcing voluntary commitment, letter to adolescent girl exercise debriefing, mirror exercise debriefing, role plays to discourage the pursuit of thin ideal and homework. Session 3 topics - reinforcing voluntary commitment, community interview debriefing, role play on disrupting thin ideal statements, reasons for signing up, behavioural challenge, top 10 list debriefing and homework. Session 4 topics - reinforcing voluntary commitment, behavioural challenge debriefing, body activism debriefing, letter to a younger self debriefing, discussion of benefits of group and closure, self-affirmation exercise, homework and closure. Participants that meet the inclusion criteria and agree to participate will complete a consent form and baseline questionnaires including the outcome measures prior to the first session commencing. On completion of the intervention, participants are requested to complete an endpoint questionnaire (same as baseline). Next, participants are invited to participate in a 30-minute semi-structured in-depth individual interview with a member of the research team to debrief about the program and their experiences. Interviews will be audio recorded. All intervention sessions are video/audio recorded to enable fidelity rating (peer educators delivery) and attendance checks. For inclusion in the evaluation, participants are required to attend at least one of the weekly online sessions. Participants are provided with weekly homework estimated to take up to 30 minutes to complete, Homework completion is not compulsory for inclusion in the evaluation.