Developing a Three-dimensional Body Satisfaction Intervention - Roundtable February 10, 2011

An unrealistic image of the human body may lead to negative feelings about one’s own body which may result in unhealthy behaviors. This especially may be true for young women who are exposed to media and fashion messages portraying unrealistic images of the body as extremely tall and slender. This project is developing and testing a body satisfaction intervention tool for young women. The basic make-up of the tool will be a montage of 3-dimensional body scan images of young women with normal BMIs representing a full range of body sizes and shapes. The premise of the project is that by viewing a full range of real bodies presented in 3-dimensional format, young women may form more realistic images of other young women and may more favorably compare their own body to these images thus improving body satisfaction. This intervention is being developed in hopes of counteracting pervasive fashion and media images. The educational intervention, pre- and post-test evaluations will be developed by researchers with expertise in anthropometry and body dimensioning, psychiatry, and graphic educational materials development.

The project has been funded by a University Symposium Research Award from 2008-2010, under the theme of Body & Knowing. Three project members will take part in this roundtable and discuss the progress of their research. Karen LaBat is a professor of Design, Housing, and Apparel, Karen Ryan is a research associate at the Human Dimensioning© Lab in the College of Design, and Chad Sowers is a graduate assistant in the department of Design, Housing, and Apparel, all at the University of Minnesota.

Official Website: http://www.ias.umn.edu/thursdayscals11.php