Julia A. Katcher

Message content may have unanticipated and harmful effects on population subgroups. This study assessed the impact of a weight‐centric health message on body shame in college women by eating disorder status and college major (health versus non‐health). Three hundred female university students (age = 20.1 ± 1.9, BMI = 23.4 ± 3.9 kg/m ² , 78% White) were randomized to a 5‐minute video communicating either a weight‐centric health message or an intuitive eating message, then completed questionnaires to assess eating disorder risk and body shame. An ANOVA indicated a significant interaction between eating disorder risk and message type on body shame ( F [1, 281] = 3.887, p = 0.05, partial eta ² =0.014). There was a significant main effect for eating disorder risk status ( F [1, 281] = 106.314, p < 0.001, partial eta ² =0.276). Among those with high eating disorder risk (35.6%), those who viewed the weight‐centric health video had higher body shame compared to those who viewed the intuitive eating video ( F [1, 281] = 4.708, p = 0.03, partial eta ² =0.017). The interaction between major (health vs non‐health) and message group was not significant. Future research should investigate whether modifying weight‐centric messages to include intuitive eating principles may better promote physical and mental health for vulnerable subgroups like college‐aged women.

Dietary restraint and low body appreciation are common among female-identifying undergraduates and are related to the development of disordered eating, which female-identifying undergraduates engage in throughout college. Training students in intuitive eating, an approach that promotes eating by internal cues, may be a way to ameliorate dietary restraint and low body appreciation, ultimately decreasing disordered eating. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a five-week intuitive eating intervention on dietary restraint, body appreciation, and intuitive eating in female-identifying undergraduates. A five-week intuitive eating intervention (NCT0394700) was facilitated by two Registered Dietitians. One treatment group (TG) (n = 7) and one waitlist control group (WLCG) (n = 7) participated in the trial. From baseline to post-intervention, there was a significant decrease in dietary restraint, t(12) = −2.88, p = 0.01, and a significant increase in intuitive eating, t(12) = 4.03, p = 0.002, in the TG compared to the WLCG. The intervention had replicable effects on all outcome variables. Measurements at the five-week follow-up suggested the impact was sustained. This study provides preliminary data suggesting an intuitive eating intervention may help improve disordered eating risk factors by decreasing dietary restraint and increasing intuitive eating in female-identifying undergraduates.