The Body
Project
An evidence-based eating disorder prevention program
The Body Project is a cognitive-dissonance-based body acceptance intervention designed to help adolescent girls and young women resist sociocultural pressures to conform to the thin-ideal and reduce their pursuit of thinness.
Resources for Facilitators,
Researchers, and Institutions
The Body Project provides a complete, freely available toolkit for evidence-based eating disorder prevention.
Training Videos
Step-by-step video demonstrations of all four The Body Project sessions, showing key facilitation techniques and group exercises in action.
Watch Videos →Research Publications
Access the full body of peer-reviewed research supporting The Body Project, including meta-analyses, RCTs, and effectiveness studies across eight independent labs.
Read Research →Program Implementation
Comprehensive guidance for launching The Body Project at your school, university, or clinical setting, from recruitment to quality assurance.
Begin Implementation →A proven approach
to prevention
The Body Project is a dissonance-based body-acceptance intervention designed for high school and college-age women. Through group-based verbal, written, and behavioral exercises, participants voluntarily argue against the thin-ideal, creating cognitive dissonance that reduces their investment in unrealistic beauty standards.
Randomized prevention trials conducted by eight independent labs have found The Body Project reduces thin-ideal internalization, body dissatisfaction, negative mood, unhealthy dieting, and eating disorder symptoms. It is the only prevention program to significantly reduce future onset of eating disorders in multiple independent trials.
The program has received support when delivered by research-trained staff, real-world providers, and even undergraduate peer leaders, making it uniquely scalable.
The Body Project overview and program introduction
A Suite of
Evidence-Based Programs
The dissonance-based framework underpins four distinct programs spanning prevention, appearance-overvaluation prevention, integrated prevention, and clinical treatment.
The Body Project
The core 4-session eating disorder prevention program for high school and college-age women. The gold standard in evidence-based prevention, available in 7+ languages.
Learn More →Project Health
A 6-session dissonance-based program targeting both eating disorders and obesity prevention, adding a healthy weight component to the core framework.
Learn More →Priorities
A 4-session program that reduces appearance overvaluation by helping participants base their self-worth on factors beyond weight and shape, such as intellect, creativity, relationships, and personal accomplishments.
Learn More →Body Project Treatment
An 8-session group treatment program for individuals already experiencing eating disorder symptoms, extending the dissonance framework into clinical care.
Learn More →