An evaluation of a body image intervention in adolescent girls delivered in single-sex versus co-educational classroom settings

Dismantling prevention: Comparison of outcomes following media literacy and appearance comparison modules in a randomised controlled trial

“…Effect sizes for interactions and planned comparisons were somewhat smaller than for previous evaluations of Happy Being Me (Bird et al, 2013;Dunstan et al, 2016;Richardson and Paxton, 2010), however, effect sizes tended to be slightly stronger in the high risk subsample. Contrary to expectations, scores were reduced for critical thinking about media messages for both intervention programs to post-program.…”

“…Intervention and active control lessons were delivered to 14 of the 16 classes by the first author, a postgraduate psychology student with experience delivering school-based intervention lessons (e.g., Dunstan et al, 2016;Richardson and Paxton, 2010). Lessons were delivered to two classes (one each of HBM-Media and HMB-Comparison) by a teacherqualified research assistant with previous intervention facilitation experience (Dunstan et al, 2016).…”

“…The intervention programs, HBM-Media, and HBM-Comparison were adapted from previous versions of Happy Being Me (Dunstan et al, 2016;Richardson and Paxton, 2010). Intervention and active control lessons were delivered to 14 of the 16 classes by the first author, a postgraduate psychology student with experience delivering school-based intervention lessons (e.g., Dunstan et al, 2016;Richardson and Paxton, 2010).…”

“…Improvements for girls, in at least two of the three evaluations, have been reported for body dissatisfaction, dietary restraint, thin-ideal internalisation, appearance comparisons, and appearance conversations. Improvements were maintained at three months following the three-lesson single-sex version (Richardson and Paxton, 2010), and maintained at six-months for thin-ideal internalisation and appearance comparison in the six-lesson co-educational version (Dunstan et al, 2016). Maintenance of improvements was less consistent for the younger sample (Bird et al, 2013).…”

“…The Happy Being Me program (Richardson and Paxton, 2010) focuses on peer interactions, both appearance comparison and appearance conversations, and also addresses media literacy. Three versions of the program have been evaluated in Australia and the United Kingdom (Bird et al, 2013;Dunstan et al, 2016;Richardson and Paxton, 2010). Improvements for girls, in at least two of the three evaluations, have been reported for body dissatisfaction, dietary restraint, thin-ideal internalisation, appearance comparisons, and appearance conversations.…”