Changing how we think about our bodies could be beneficial to our health.
Catherine Walker, associate professor of psychology at Union College, determines how to do so.
Catherine Walker is an associate professor of psychology at Union College, a small liberal arts college in Schenectady, NY. She is also a licensed clinical psychologist with a small part time practice. Her research and clinical focus is on eating disorders, weight, and body image, in particular, she focuses on body image interventions.
Focus On What Your Body Does Rather Than How It Looks
What if focusing on body functionality—what the body can do, not just how it looks—could improve women’s body image? We tested this in a three-week trial, with 287 female college students randomly assigned to one of three groups.
The Functionality Group performed functionality-focused mirror exposure, where they looked at each body part and considered what it enabled them to do or feel. They also received text prompts asking for gratitude about their body’s abilities. For example, they were asked: “Text us back with something that you were recently able to touch or feel that gives you pleasure, such as the hug of a good friend or petting your dog.”
An Active Comparator Group did the same mirror exposure but with no specific guidance on how to look at each body part, and they received general gratitude prompts unrelated to their bodies. For example, “Text us back with something you are grateful to have learned this week and why.”
A third group was an Assessment-Only control.
They were all assessed before and after the intervention and at one and four months afterwards.
The Functionality condition demonstrated significant improvements relative to the Active Comparator condition in Functionality Appreciation at directly after the intervention and at the four month follow-up, Body Appreciation directly after the intervention, and eating disorder symptoms directly after the intervention. Further, the Functionality condition exhibited significant improvements compared to the Assessment Only condition in functional appreciation directly after the intervention, in appearance evaluation at both one and four-month follow-ups, and decreased body checking at the one-month follow-up.
This simple, functionality-focused exercise is a promising “micro-intervention.” We hope to develop it into a smartphone app to provide accessible, positive support for at-risk individuals that they can find and use at home on their phones.
