“Made This Way for a Reason”: Body Satisfaction and Spirituality

Dissemination of a dissonance-based body image promotion program for mothers and daughters in church settings: A controlled pilot study of Reclaiming Beauty

This proof of concept, controlled pilot study expands on existing dissonance-based body image promotion programs by testing a modified version of the Body Project for 136 mothers and daughters aged 11-18 years old in church settings called Reclaiming Beauty. Mothers (n = 30) and their daughters (n = 35) who participated in Reclaiming Beauty were compared to mothers (n = 32) and daughters (n = 39) in a waitlist, assessment-only, control group on body image, eating psychopathology, and risk factor measures (thin-ideal internalization, physical appearance comparison) at pre-, post-, and 6-month-follow-up assessments. Intent-to-treat, multilevel modeling indicated that mothers and daughters in the Reclaiming Beauty group experienced significant improvement in body appreciation, body shape concerns, eating psychopathology, thin-ideal internalization, and physical appearance comparison over a six-month period compared to control participants. Changes in thin-ideal internalization and appearance comparison did not predict body image and eating psychopathology at follow-up. Baseline levels of body satisfaction did not moderate the effect of the program, except for its effect on body shape concerns. Findings provide preliminary support for delivering a dissonance-based body image promotion intervention to mothers and their daughters and the feasibility of leveraging the mother-daughter relationship as well as delivering interventions in church settings.

Temple or Prison: Religious Beliefs and Attitudes Toward the Body

Most research on religion and the body has focused on the relationship between broad dimensions of religion, such as religious commitment or religious orientation, and body image or eating behaviors. The present study extends existing research by examining two specific religiously influenced beliefs about the body within a Protestant Christian sample, radical dualism and sanctification, and by focusing on a wider range of attitudes toward the body. The view of radical dualism sees the body as corrupt and separate from oneself, while the view of sanctification sees the body as holy, worthy of respect, and integral to one's being. This study examined how both radically dualistic and sanctified views of the body relate to attitudes people hold about their bodies including body appreciation and two components of body objectification: self-surveillance and body shame. To date, none of these attitudes have been examined in relation to specific, nuanced religious beliefs about the body. Participants were 243 adults from a variety of Protestant denominations. Using an online survey system and self-report measures, participants indicated the degree to which they hold radically dualistic and sanctified views about their bodies as well as their attitudes toward their bodies. Radical dualism was found to be negatively related to body appreciation and positively related to body shame. Sanctification was found to predict body appreciation. Body shame mediated the relationship between religious beliefs about the body and self-surveillance. This study contributes to a greater understanding of how religiously based beliefs about the body are related to attitudes about the body.

My Body is a Temple: Eating Disturbances, Religious Involvement, and Mental Health Among Young Adult Women

A growing body of the literature outlines the undesirable mental health consequences of eating disturbances. However, little attention has been given to the possible mitigating effects of cultural institutions, such as religion, in the lives of women suffering from such pathologies. Our work contributes to the literature by (a) outlining a series of arguments linking eating disturbances, religion, and mental health; (b) specifying two conceptual models of these relationships; and (c) testing relevant hypotheses using data on a large nationwide sample of young women. Results indicate that religious involvement-organizational, non-organizational, and subjective religiousness-moderates the effects of eating disturbances on mental health, particularly for self-esteem. Study limitations are identified and several promising directions for future research are discussed.