Enhancing efficacy of a dissonance-based obesity and eating disorder prevention program: Experimental therapeutics
Abstract
Objective: Test the hypothesis that the efficacy of a dissonance-based obesity/eating disorder prevention program, Project Health, could be enhanced by implementing it in single-sex groups and adding food response inhibition and attention training.
Method: Using a 2 × 2 factorial design, young adults (N = 261; Mage = 19.3, 79% female; 64% White) were randomized to (a) single-sex or (b) mixed-sex groups that completed food response inhibition and attention training or (c) single-sex or (d) mixed-sex groups that completed generic response inhibition and attention training with nonfood images. Preregistered primary outcomes (body fat, Body Mass Index [BMI]), eating disorder symptoms and other outcomes were assessed at pretest and posttest.
Results: For one preregistered primary outcome, body fat loss, there was a significant interaction between the two manipulated factors (d = -.28), as well as significant main effects for sex composition of groups (d = -.18) and food response inhibition and attention training (d = -0.17), with the largest body fat loss occurring for single-sex groups implemented with food response inhibition and attention training. Although the two manipulated factors did not significantly affect the other outcomes (including BMI, the other preregistered primary outcome), there was a significant reduction in eating disorder symptoms across the conditions (within participant d = -.78), converging with prior evidence that Project Health produced larger…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 261 participants or records.
Read the paper
Related studies
- The neurocircuitry of addiction: an overview
- Gender Differences in Human Brain: A Review
- Stratified medicine for mental disorders
- The neurobiology of drug addiction: cross-species insights into the dysfunction and recovery of the prefrontal cortex
- Annual Research Review: DNA methylation as a mediator in the association between risk exposure and child and adolescent psychopathology
- Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.