Prevention of eating disorders: recent advances.

Abstract

Purpose of review: Only one in five people with eating disorders ever receive care, making effective prevention critical. This review synthesizes prevention trials from the past 2 years - highlighting new interventions and implementation strategies.

Recent findings: A dissonance-based program for Brazilian men reduced muscle dysmorphia and body dissatisfaction, but not eating-disorder symptoms. The Body Advocacy Movement, designed to lessen fatphobia, produced medium declines in weight bias but only small symptom reductions, performing no better than the Body Project. Eat Breathe Thrive, a yoga-based program for female athletes, improved anxiety and interoceptive body trusting but did not reduce eating pathology. Two studies testing the Diabetes Body Project for young women with type 1 diabetes - an open pilot and a multinational randomized trial - produced large, durable reductions in general and diabetes specific symptoms but did not improve glycemic control. An implementation experiment across 63 colleges showed that pairing train-the-trainer workshops with technical assistance and ongoing quality assurance supervision maximized clinical benefit per dollar.

Summary: Recent work demonstrates promising population-specific adaptations of dissonance-based programs and underscores that comprehensive implementation support enhances effectiveness. Future work should optimize high-school delivery, boost effect sizes, and verify long-term reductions in future eating disorder onset.