Associate Professor Sue Byrne form the University of Western Australia will be presenting a WORKSHOP on BODY IMAGE
Promoting positive body image in schools
Body image was identified as the number one concern of both males and females in a 2007 survey of over 30,000 Australian adolescents. Up to 80% of adolescent girls and 50% of adolescent boys report being dissatisfied with their bodies and, among primary school-aged children, 50% of girls and 30% of boys report body dissatisfaction. Body dissatisfaction is a known risk factor for the type of disordered eating that is associated with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, including such extreme and unhealthy weight loss techniques as severe dietary restriction, self-induced vomiting and laxative abuse. A recent Australian study found that approximately 20% of adolescent females engage in such behaviours. The incidence of disordered eating in young people has increased significantly in Australia over the last two decades. During the same time frame, the prevalence of obesity in Australian children has trebled. Body image is central to both eating disorders and obesity, and both conditions are associated with severe adverse medical and psychosocial consequences. The effect of extensive public health efforts to reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity on body image and disordered eating is not clear, however, it is possible that strategies to prevent obesity might actually promote excessive weight and shape concern, poor body image and disordered eating among young people. This presentation will examine the outcomes of school-based prevention programmes that have targeted eating disorders and obesity separately, and will conclude with recommendations for an integrated approach to the prevention of obesity, eating disorders and poor body image that could be implemented in schools.
Associate Professor Sue Byrne, The University of Western Australia
Susan Byrne is a Clinical Psychologist and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, School of Psychology. She has an M.Psych/PhD (Clinical) from UWA and a D.Phil from the University of Oxford. Sue returned to UWA in 2002, after five years of research and clinical training at the University of Oxford, Department of Psychiatry. In Oxford, she joined a leading international research team in the field of eating and weight disorders. Her work there involved helping to develop and test new treatments for eating disorders and obesity.
Since her return to UWA, Sue has continued with this research. She is currently chief investigator of a large population-based prospective study which is aiming to identify causal pathways to the development and persistence of childhood obesity. Sue also leads a team of researchers and students at UWA in providing evidence-based psychological treatment for the whole range of eating and weight disorders in children, adolescents and adults. Sue was also instrumental in setting up the first public eating disorder service for adults in Western Australia, which is now housed at the Centre for Clinical Interventions in Northbridge.
