Clinical trial NCT05316610: Coach-Led Body Image Intervention for Girls in Sport - Pilot
Official title: Body Confident Athletes: Acceptability Testing of a Coach-Led Body Image Intervention for Adolescent Girls in Sport
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Intervention
Waitlist Control
Keywords: Body image
Embodiment
Girls
Athletes
Coaches
Task shifting
Lead sponsor: University of the West of England
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Unilever R&D
name: Nike
name: Laureus
name: Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport
First posted: 2022-04-07
Enrollment: 18
Sex: FEMALE
Minimum age (years): 11
Maximum age (years): 17
Standard ages: CHILD
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: According to the World Health Organization, only 15% of 11-17-year-old girls meet the recommended daily physical movement guidelines (e.g., 60-minutes per day). Despite extensive research highlighting the protective factors associated with sport on both mental and physical health, body image concerns are a key barrier to girls' participation in and enjoyment of sport. Sports-related environments and society more broadly further exacerbate these concerns through harmful gender stereotypes that perpetuate female objectification, discrimination, and harassment. This includes the promotion of unrealistic and sexualized appearances of female athletes, uncomfortable and objectifying uniforms, and appearance and competence-related teasing from male and female peers, as well as coaches.

The magnitude of this issue and how best to address it, can be understood from a socioecological perspective. Researchers suggest developing multi-faceted and multi-tiered approaches that have scope for targeting the individual, interpersonal, organizational, and societal levels. The current research will test the first coach delivered embodying sports program for girls that will be implemented through sporting organizations. The Body Confident Athletes program was co-created with girls and coaches through an international multi-disciplinary partnership between academics, health professionals, industry, and community organizations. Multi-disciplinary partnerships can create a supportive landscape by upskilling girls and influential community members (e.g., coaches) in dealing with body image concerns, which will likely lead to sustained sports participation and biopsychosocial benefits.

As such, the aim of the present study is to conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability of the Body Confident Athletes program. The program consists of five 60-minute sessions delivered by coaches to adolescent girls. Each session tackles a distinct theme related to body image in the sporting context. Outcomes will be assessed at pre- and post-intervention (5 weeks later) and include body image (primary outcome), sport enjoyment and embodied experiences (secondary outcomes), and feasibility, acceptability, and adherence (process outcomes). The comparison control arm will be a waitlist control condition.

To undertake this project, sporting organizations will be cluster-randomized into the intervention group or the control group, with 80 girls anticipated in each arm. Those in the intervention condition will complete baseline assessments (target outcomes and demographic information), take part in the five-week intervention, and then complete the post-intervention assessments (target outcomes and feasibility and acceptability measures). Those in the waitlist control condition will complete the baseline assessments (target outcomes and demographic information) and a second assessment five weeks later (target outcomes only), after which they will get access to the intervention. However, their engagement with the intervention will not be monitored or assessed. At completion of the post-intervention survey, all participants will receive a debrief form, outlining the study aims and objectives, and additional resources for body image and eating concerns. Lastly, to compensate participants for their time, girls and coaches will receive an electronic voucher to the value of $60 dollars.

The investigators hypothesize that girls who take part in the Body Confident Athletes intervention will report better body image, greater sport enjoyment, and higher levels of embodiment at post-intervention than girls who do not take part in the intervention.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Girls aged 11-17 years old
* English speaking
* US resident

Exclusion Criteria:

* n/a

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change in body esteem (assessed via the Body Esteem Scale for Adults and Adolescents)
timeFrame: Baseline, pre-intervention; immediately after the intervention (5 weeks later)
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Change in embodiment (assessed via the Youth Experience of Embodiment Scale)
timeFrame: Baseline, pre-intervention; immediately after the intervention (5 weeks later)
measure: Change in sport enjoyment (assessed via the Sources of Enjoyment in Youth Sport Questionnaire)
timeFrame: Baseline, pre-intervention; immediately after the intervention (5 weeks later)
Other outcomes:
measure: Total acceptability of the intervention (assessed via a self-report questionnaire)
timeFrame: Immediately after the intervention
measure: Total intervention fidelity (assessed via investigator observation of recorded intervention sessions)
timeFrame: Immediately after the intervention
measure: Total intervention adherence (assessed through session completion)
timeFrame: Immediately after the intervention
Locations:
city: Bristol
country: United Kingdom
facility: Centre for Appearance Research, University of the West of England
Study officials:
References:
citation: Guthold R, Stevens GA, Riley LM, Bull FC. Global trends in insufficient physical activity among adolescents: a pooled analysis of 298 population-based surveys with 1.6 million participants. Lancet Child Adolesc Health. 2020 Jan;4(1):23-35. doi: 10.1016/S2352-4642(19)30323-2. Epub 2019 Nov 21.
citation: Neumark-Sztainer D, MacLehose RF, Watts AW, Pacanowski CR, Eisenberg ME. Yoga and body image: Findings from a large population-based study of young adults. Body Image. 2018 Mar;24:69-75. doi: 10.1016/j.bodyim.2017.12.003. Epub 2017 Dec 27.
citation: Sabiston, C., Pila, E., Vani, M., & Thogersen-Ntoumani, C. (2019). Body image, physical activity, and sport: A scoping review. Psychology Of Sport And Exercise, 42, 48-57. doi: 10.1016/j.psychsport.2018.12.010
citation: Sabiston, C. M., Vani, M. F., & Murray, R. M. (2021). Body-related self-conscious emotions in sport and exercise: A self-regulation perspective. In Motivation and Self-regulation in Sport and Exercise (pp. 62-77). Routledge.
citation: Slater A, Tiggemann M. Gender differences in adolescent sport participation, teasing, self-objectification and body image concerns. J Adolesc. 2011 Jun;34(3):455-63. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2010.06.007. Epub 2010 Jul 31.
citation: Vani MF, Pila E, Willson E, Sabiston CM. Body-related embarrassment: The overlooked self-conscious emotion. Body Image. 2020 Mar;32:14-23. doi: 10.1016/j.bodyim.2019.10.007. Epub 2019 Nov 13.
citation: Matheson EL, Schneider J, Tinoco A, Gentili C, Silva-Breen H, LaVoi NM, White P, Diedrichs PC. The co-creation, initial piloting, and protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial of a coach-led positive body image intervention for girls in sport. BMC Public Health. 2023 Jul 31;23(1):1467. doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-16360-w.