Turkish adaptation and effectiveness research of "Body project" eating disorder prevention program for female young adults

The aim of the current study is to translate, adapt, and evaluate the effectiveness of the virtual form of the Body Project (vBP) developed by Stice, Mazotti, Weibel, & Agras (2000). Seventy-three female college students aged 18-25 with reported body dissatisfaction were reached using the convenience sampling method and randomly assigned into two groups. The first group was virtual Body Project (vBP) group (N =40) and the second one was the Expressive Writing (EW) group (N = 33). The participants completed a questionnaire set including the Body Mass Index (BMI), Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q), Body Image Quality of Life (BIQLI), and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES). The vBP group participated in 1-hour weekly sessions for 4 consecutive weeks while the EW group completed four Expressive Writing tasks weekly. Afterward, the same questionnaire set was administered as posttest assessment. Results revealed that there was no significant difference between two groups in terms of pretest scores. However, the vBP group had significantly lower EDE-Q posttest scores with large effect size (r = .66) and BSI posttest scores with medium effect size (r = .34) when compared to the EW group. Similarly, the vBP group also had higher scores in BIQLI (r = .34) and RSES (r = .34) in post-test assessment with medium effect sizes. When the pre- and post-test scores are compared for each group, it was found that the EW group's pre and post-test scores were not significantly different in any measurement. Yet, the vBP group's post-test scores were significantly lower than pre-test scores for EDE-Q (r = .87) and BSI (r = .71) with large effect sizes. The post test scores of the vBP group was significantly higher than their pre-test scores for BIQLI (r = .63) and RSES (r = .58) with large effect. The results of the current study suggest that the virtual Body Project is effective for preventing eating disorders and can be used by professionals.