Graduate Student Research

Body functionality interventions, which emphasize the body’s abilities rather than appearance, have shown promise for improving positive body image and reducing body dissatisfaction. The Body Image Education for Las Latinas App (BELLA), developed by Sarah, was the first mobile app culturally adapted and designed for Latine women to encourage a positive body image by emphasizing body functionality. Results showed BELLA increased body appreciation, functionality appreciation, self-esteem, and body satisfaction, as well as reduced self-objectification and restrictive eating. These findings suggest that BELLA is a promising intervention for enhancing positive body image and reducing disordered eating among Latine women.

This year, Will presented research on the associations between different eating disorder symptoms and core military-relevant traumatic experiences among veterans. He found that military sexual trauma (MST) was positively associated with more purging, restricting, and binge eating in women. These findings could suggest that different traumatic experiences carry differential eating disorder symptom risk when comparing across binary gender. Will plans to consolidate these findings and prepare a formal MA thesis manuscript for internal program defense and later publication within the larger scientific community.

Many students with eating problems cannot access care due to high treatment costs and lack of specialized treatment providers. Funded by the American Psychological Association Junior Scientist Fellowship as a part of her master’s thesis project, Sonakshi developed and tested Help for Overcoming Problem Eating (HOPE). HOPE is a digital single-session intervention for binge eating problems in college students.

Excitingly, results from this project showed that HOPE users really enjoyed the program and thought it would benefit other students with binge eating problems. After using HOPE, users also had lower binge eating at one-week and four-week follow-ups. Sonakshi recently defended her thesis and passed with honors. Over the next few years, Sonakshi plans to keep testing the effectiveness of HOPE.

Myths about who eating disorders affect prevent eating disorder detection among pregnant and postpartum individuals, especially Black birthing individuals. Mari is developing a racially inclusive eating disorder screening tool for pregnant and postpartum individuals centered on findings from qualitative interviews conducted with Black, African American, and Afro-Caribbean individuals about eating and body image during pregnancy and postpartum.

Through collaboration with Uzazi Village, an organization in Kansas City that promotes birthing health equity, as well as financial support from Postpartum Support International and the KU Racial Equity Fund, Mari aims to make the screening tool widely available for use within obstetric and other healthcare settings across the U.S.