The Body Project
Wallace Family Therapy is excited to announce the introduction of The Body Project in 2023 for FREE as an on-going community initiative.
The Body Project is a cognitive-dissonance-based body acceptance intervention designed to help adolescent girls confront unrealistic sociocultural beauty ideals and engage them in the development of healthy body image through verbal, written, and behavioral exercises. Teens attend four, one-hour classes designed to improve body image, reduce risk for eating disorders, and improve school and social functioning.
Please contact us if you or someone you know would like to participate.
Body image concerns can affect all of us. All ages, all genders, all cultures.
Research has shown when women/girls talk about the “appearance-ideal” (sometimes referred to as the thin-ideal, beauty-ideal, or cultural-ideal) portrayed in the mass media, and discuss how to challenge pressures to conform to these pressures, it makes them feel better about their bodies. One program that has repeatedly been shown to effectively reduce body dissatisfaction, negative mood, unhealthy dieting and disordered eating, is the Body Project.
What Is The Body Project?
Backed by two decades of research and evaluation data, the Body Project is a group-based intervention that provides a forum for women and girls to confront unrealistic beauty ideals and engages them in the development of healthy body image through verbal, written, and behavioral exercises. The Body Project was developed by researchers at Stanford University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Oregon Research Institute, and has been delivered to over one million young women around the world.
The conceptual basis for the Body Project is that if girls and young women voluntarily argue against the societal appearance-ideal, this will result in a reduced subscription to this ideal and consequently decrease eating disorder risk factors and eating disordered behaviors.
What Are The Objectives Of The Body Project?
- Define the “appearance” ideal and explore its origin
- Examine the “costs” of pursuing this ideal
- Explore ways to resist pressures to conform to unrealistic standards of beauty
- Discuss how to challenge personal body-related concerns
- Learn new ways to talk more positively about our bodies
- Talk about how we can best respond to future pressures to conform to societal standards of beauty
Time Magazine article about the Body Project (1/17/2008)
CONTACT US if you or someone you know would like to participate in The Body Project.