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| Professor Helen Truby |
A world-first study at Monash has shown a group-based
targeted intervention improves self-esteem in teenage girls.
Low self-esteem and body dissatisfaction in girls is related
to disordered eating, obesity, depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses.
Published in the American Journal of Health
Promotion, the collaborative Monash University and Monash Health study is
the first randomised trial to demonstrate that a group-based intervention
improves protective health factors among girls at risk of developing negative
mental, physical, and social health outcomes.
Professor Helen Truby, Head of the Department of Nutrition
and Dietetics at Monash University and Laura Tirlea from Monash Health led the
study evaluating an intervention known as ‘Girls on the Go!’ (GoG), a ten week
program designed to improve self-esteem, body image and confidence.
“This is the first large trial of a gender-specific community-based
program that has shown to effectively increase self-esteem,” said Professor
Truby.
“GoG is a novel intervention targeting girls with a range of
issues with eating such as overweight or underweight and in both primary and
secondary schools.”
Delivered by health professionals outside the school
environment from a community health venue to preadolescent and adolescent
girls, the GoG program uses an empowerment model that involves interactive and
experiential learning approaches.
“Using a stepped-wedge
randomised controlled trial, we tested the effectiveness of the GoG program on
the outcomes of self-esteem, impairment induced by eating disorders, body
satisfaction, self-efficacy, and dieting behaviours,” said co-author Professor Haines,
Director, Allied Health Research Unit at Monash Health and Monash University.
“The GoG intervention had a positive impact on participants’
self-esteem, self-efficacy (including mental and physical health), and dieting
behaviours.”
The GoG intervention was provided to schools in the
culturally diverse City of Greater Dandenong, an area of high social
disadvantage.
In small group sessions, health professionals motivated and
supported GoG participants to change their attitudes and behaviours, and
embrace change for better health outcomes.
“Over the ten week period, interactive activities and
discussions took place around goal setting, body image, self-esteem, personal
safety and assertiveness, health eating and healthy minds, involvement in physical
activities that are fun, trust, confidence, and making community connections,”
said Ms Tirlea.
“Our findings are important, particularly given our study
sample included a high proportion of girls from culturally and linguistically
diverse backgrounds and was set in a community with lower socioeconomic status.”
“These groups can be difficult to recruit into research
programs and are often underrepresented in research of this nature.
“Previous meta-analyses have found that similar health
promotion interventions have had only a small, short-term effect whereas the
gains in GoG participants were retained after six months and up to nine months of
follow up.”
Significantly, this evaluation provides an evidence base for
the effectiveness of the GoG program at a time when preventive approaches are
timely and desperately needed.
“Focussing on self-esteem as a general protective factor is
a safe approach and leads to overall health and well-being in at-risk
preadolescent and adolescent girls,” added Ms Tirlea.
‘Girls on the Go!’ research is funded by the Butterfly Foundation,
a philanthropic trust committed to the prevention of eating disorders.
Date: Tuesday 29th September
DATE: Saturday, 28th November 2015
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