Events

Preventing Eating Disorders: Combating the Thin Ideal, featuring Eric Stice

New research to reduce young women's pursuit of the "thin ideal"

Guest speaker Eric Stice, a senior research scientist at Oregon Research Institute, describes new research that uses persuasion principles and brain imaging to reduce young women's pursuit of the "thin ideal." Stice will describe how those interventions led to reduced eating disorder symptoms.

He will first provide a conceptual overview of the use of dissonance-induction for reducing an attitudinal risk factor for development of eating disorders. Stice will then present results from a large efficacy trial that found that a selective eating disorder prevention program that uses dissonance-induction to reduce pursuit of the thin-ideal espoused for women significantly reduced eating disorder symptoms and risk for future onset of eating disorders. Next, he will present research that has examined the mediators that account for intervention effects and studies that have investigated the mechanisms of action, including results from a novel brain imaging study that suggests that the intervention alters neural response to thin-ideal images and statements. He will then describe findings from two large effectiveness trials that have found that the dissonance intervention significantly reduces eating disorder symptoms and risk factors under real-world conditions when professional clinicians recruit young women at risk for eating disorders and deliver the intervention. Finally, Stice will describe findings from two new trials that have found that the dissonance prevention programs produce intervention effects when delivered by peer leaders or over the Internet, both of which hold the promise of expanding the reach of this evidence-based prevention program. He will conclude by discussing current dissemination efforts.

Stice has conducted prospective studies investigating risk factors for future increases in eating pathology, weight, substance use, and depression, including several involving brain imaging, genotypes, and their interactions. He has also conducted numerous randomized efficacy and effectiveness prevention trials for eating disorders, obesity, and depression.

He developed a novel dissonance-based eating disorder prevention program in which young women are given an opportunity to critique the thin-ideal espoused for women in our culture through role plays, written assignments, and “body activism” home-exercises, which prompts them to reduce their pursuit of this unrealistic ideal. This brief 4-session intervention produced a 60 percent reduction in eating disorder onset over a three-year follow-up, which is a first for an eating disorder prevention program. He also developed a brief healthy weight control obesity prevention program that produced a 55 percent reduction in risk for obesity onset over a three-year follow-up, which is another novel finding. He is currently focusing on refining these prevention programs and on broad dissemination of these brief prevention programs.

Stice completed a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Arizona State University, a clinical internship at the University of California San Diego, and a postdoctoral research fellowship at Stanford University in behavioral medicine. He then accepted a position at the University of Texas at Austin as an assistant professor and was later promoted to associate professor.

This event is part of the TPRC Science to Service: Substance Abuse Prevention Seminar series.

Parking for this event is available for a fee in the Bryan Center parking deck or the Science Drive visitor's lot. Directions and parking information.