According to the National Eating Disorder Association, every 52 minutes someone dies of an eating disorder, 28.8 million Americans are struggling with an eating disorder, 26% attempt suicide and less than 6% are medically underweight. In fact, people in larger bodies are at the highest risk of having developed an eating disorder in their lives, and among people in larger bodies, the higher the BMI, the higher the risk. The economic cost of eating disorders is $64.7 billion per year.   This means that it is important to keep in mind the signs and symptoms of eating disorders and that we need further education on eating disorder awareness and early prevention for body image disorders. 

“The Body Project,” A Dissonance Based Body Acceptance and Eating Disorder Prevention Program, established by the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) was developed and evaluated by Stanford University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Oregon Research Institute.  This program has been delivered to over one million young women around the world and is shown to reduce the risk of future onset eating disorders.  This program consists of written, verbal, and behavioral exercises in which participants voluntarily critique our culturally promoted appearance ideal for women during four weekly sessions. The goal of this program is to promote awareness to all students. In hopes to prevent developing an eating disorder. 

The Knox County Family and Consumer Sciences Agent partnered with Lynn Camp High School Family and Consumer Sciences teacher to present, “The Body Project” to 80 teen girls.   This program was presented monthly due to classroom instruction time and scheduling.  Each session of the body project was presented during classes.  

At the first session the students were presented with what the appearance ideal was and what the healthy ideal is, we discussed the ideal body image and how this vision was not realistic.  Students were able to write a letter to a younger female about the cost of the appearance ideal.  One student quoted, “You are perfect the way that you are.”  Another quoted, “One thing that always helped me, is turning my phone off and listening to music.”  100% of participants participated in role-play activities in response to negative body image comments educating them on replacing the negative comments with positive thoughts. Participants completed the program by placing body positive quotes on restroom mirrors to encourage body positivity among their peers.  92% of participants learned to prepare a healthy recipe at each session.