Virtual Body Project Groups Led by Peers Versus Clinicians (v-BP)

December 11, 2025 updated by: Line Wisting, Oslo University Hospital

Effectiveness of the Body Project to Prevent Eating Disorders in Young Females at Risk: a Randomized Controlled Trial

Eating disorders (EDs) are a group of illnesses associated with significant psychological and physiological consequences. Overall, only 20% of individuals with EDs receive treatment and treatment is effective for only about 25-35% for those who receive care. The development and implementation of effective prevention approaches for those at risk is therefore pivotal. The Body Project is the most effective ED prevention program for at-risk females according to meta-analyses, but reach has been limited since delivery has traditionally been in-person. Further research is warranted to examine cost-effective and easily accessible approaches to increase scalability and potential for broad implementation. With this application, the investigators therefore propose to examine the effectiveness of the Body Project in young females, a high-risk group, with the following main novel aspects: i) virtually-delivered Body Project groups to maximize reach; ii) peer-led versus clinician-led virtually-delivered Body Project groups; iii) the inclusion of objective measures to assess engagement of intervention targets (i.e., mediator).

Study Overview

Status

Status

Indicates the current recruitment status or the expanded access status.
Active, not recruiting

Conditions

Conditions

The disease, disorder, syndrome, illness, or injury that is being studied. On ClinicalTrials.gov, conditions may also include other health-related issues, such as lifespan, quality of life, and health risks.

Intervention / Treatment

Intervention / Treatment

A process or action that is the focus of a clinical study. Interventions include drugs, medical devices, procedures, vaccines, and other products that are either investigational or already available. Interventions can also include noninvasive approaches, such as education or modifying diet and exercise.

Study Type

Study Type

Describes the nature of a clinical study. Study types include interventional studies (also called clinical trials), observational studies (including patient registries), and expanded access.
Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

Enrollment

The number of participants in a clinical study. The "anticipated" enrollment is the target number of participants that the researchers need for the study.
441

Phase

Phase

The stage of a clinical trial studying a drug or biological product, based on definitions developed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The phase is based on the study's objective, the number of participants, and other characteristics. There are five phases: Early Phase 1 (formerly listed as Phase 0), Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, and Phase 4. Not Applicable is used to describe trials without FDA-defined phases, including trials of devices or behavioral interventions.
  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Contact

The name and contact information for the person who can answer enrollment questions for a clinical study. Each location where the study is being conducted may also have a specific contact, who may be better able to answer those questions.

Study Locations

  • Norway
      • Oslo, Norway
        • Oslo University Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

The key requirements that people who want to participate in a clinical study must meet or the characteristics they must have. Eligibility criteria consist of both inclusion criteria (which are required for a person to participate in the study) and exclusion criteria (which prevent a person from participating). Types of eligibility criteria include whether a study accepts healthy volunteers, has age or age group requirements, or is limited by sex.

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Age 16-25
  • Female identifying
  • Self-reported body image concerns

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Ongoing eating disorder diagnosis requiring treatment or hospitalization

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Participant Group / Arm

A group or subgroup of participants in a clinical trial that receives a specific intervention/treatment, or no intervention, according to the trial's protocol.
Intervention / Treatment

Intervention / Treatment

A process or action that is the focus of a clinical study. Interventions include drugs, medical devices, procedures, vaccines, and other products that are either investigational or already available. Interventions can also include noninvasive approaches, such as education or modifying diet and exercise.
Experimental: Clinician-led Body Project
Participants randomized to this condition will take part in virtual Body Project groups led by clinicians.
Behavioral: Body Project
The Body Project prevention program is a body acceptance program to promote a healthy body image and prevent eating disorder onset.
Experimental: Peer-led Body Project
Participants randomized to this condition will take part in virtual Body Project groups led by peers.
Behavioral: Body Project
The Body Project prevention program is a body acceptance program to promote a healthy body image and prevent eating disorder onset.
Active Comparator: Educational control
Participants randomized to the educational control group will receive educational videos on body image and eating disorders
Behavioral: Psychoeducational control
Participants randomized to the educational control condition will receive videos addressing body image and eating disorders

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures

In a clinical study's protocol, the planned outcome measure that is the most important for evaluating the effect of an intervention/treatment. Most clinical studies have one primary outcome measure, but some have more than one.
Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change over time in eating disorder symptoms
Time Frame: Baseline/pretest, posttest right after intervention (an average of 8 weeks), and at follow-up after 6-months, 1-year, and 2-years
Assessed with the 28-item self-report Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q). Responses range from 0-6, whith higher scores indicating more severe eating disorder psychopathology
Baseline/pretest, posttest right after intervention (an average of 8 weeks), and at follow-up after 6-months, 1-year, and 2-years
Rate of eating disorder onset
Time Frame: Baseline/pretest, 1-year, and at 2-years
Assessed with the eating disorder diagnostic interview Eating Disorder Assessment-5 (EDA-5). This is a semi-structured clinician-led diagnostic interview, based on the diagnostic criteria in the diagnostic manual DSM-5, and is efficient to determine eating disorder diagnostic status. This outcome will be used to determine proportion of participants with an eating disorder diagnosis.
Baseline/pretest, 1-year, and at 2-years
Change over time in Body dissatisfaction
Time Frame: Baseline/pretest, posttest right after intervention (an average of 8 weeks), and at follow-up after 6-months, 1-year, and 2-years
Assessed with the 10-item Body Dissatisfaction Scale (BDI; Berscheid et al., 2973) which assesses dissatisfaction with various body parts. Each item is scored on a scale of 1 = extremely dissatisfied to 5 = extremely satisfied. Lower scores indicate greater body dissatisfaction
Baseline/pretest, posttest right after intervention (an average of 8 weeks), and at follow-up after 6-months, 1-year, and 2-years
Change over time in thin-ideal internalization
Time Frame: Baseline/pretest, posttest right after intervention (an average of 8 weeks), and at follow-up after 6-months, 1-year, and 2-years
Assessed with the 8-item Ideal-Body Stereotype Scale-Revised (Stice et al., 2017) which measures pursuit of the thin ideal. Each item is scored on a scale of 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. Higher scores indicate greater belief in the thin-deal.
Baseline/pretest, posttest right after intervention (an average of 8 weeks), and at follow-up after 6-months, 1-year, and 2-years
Negative affect
Time Frame: Baseline/pretest, posttest right after intervention (an average of 8 weeks), and at follow-up after 6-months, 1-year, and 2-years
20 negative items from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule - Revised (PANAS-X) (Watson & Clark, 1992) to measure negative affect. Higher scores indicate higher levels of negative affect. Responses range from 1-5
Baseline/pretest, posttest right after intervention (an average of 8 weeks), and at follow-up after 6-months, 1-year, and 2-years

Secondary Outcome Measures

Secondary Outcome Measures

In a clinical study's protocol, a planned outcome measure that is not as important as the primary outcome measure for evaluating the effect of an intervention but is still of interest. Most clinical studies have more than one secondary outcome measure.
Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change over time in appearance ideals and perceived pressures
Time Frame: Baseline/pretest, posttest right after intervention (an average of 8 weeks), and at follow-up after 6-months, 1-year, and 2-years
Assessed with the Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire (SATAQ-4R) (Schaefer et al., 2017). A total of 31 items are included, and responses range from 1-5. Higher scores indicate higher levels of internalization/pressures
Baseline/pretest, posttest right after intervention (an average of 8 weeks), and at follow-up after 6-months, 1-year, and 2-years

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Sponsor

The organization or person who initiates the study and who has authority and control over the study.
Oslo University Hospital

Collaborators

Collaborators

An organization other than the sponsor that provides support for a clinical study. This support may include activities related to funding, design, implementation, data analysis, or reporting.
Karolinska Institutet
Stanford University
Oslo New University College, Norway

Investigators

Investigators

A researcher involved in a clinical study. Related terms include site principal investigator, site sub-investigator, study chair, study director, and study principal investigator.
  • Principal Investigator: Line Wisting, PhD, Oslo University Hospital

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

Study Start

The actual date on which the first participant was enrolled in a clinical study. The "anticipated" study start date is the date that the researchers think will be the study start date.
February 15, 2024

Primary Completion (Estimated)

Primary Completion

The date on which the last participant in a clinical study was examined or received an intervention to collect final data for the primary outcome measure. Whether the clinical study ended according to the protocol or was terminated does not affect this date. For clinical studies with more than one primary outcome measure with different completion dates, this term refers to the date on which data collection is completed for all the primary outcome measures. The "anticipated" primary completion date is the date that the researchers think will be the primary completion date for the study.
December 31, 2027

Study Completion (Estimated)

Study Completion

The date on which the last participant in a clinical study was examined or received an intervention/treatment to collect final data for the primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, and adverse events (that is, the last participant's last visit). The "anticipated" study completion date is the date that the researchers think will be the study completion date.
December 31, 2029

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

First Submitted

The date on which the study sponsor or investigator first submitted a study record to ClinicalTrials.gov. There is typically a delay of a few days between the first submitted date and the record's availability on ClinicalTrials.gov (the first posted date).
July 31, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

The date on which the study sponsor or investigator first submits a study record that is consistent with National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review criteria. The sponsor or investigator may need to revise and submit a study record one or more times before NLM's QC review criteria are met. It is the responsibility of the sponsor or investigator to ensure that the study record is consistent with the NLM QC review criteria.
August 8, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

First Posted

The date on which the study record was first available on ClinicalTrials.gov after National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review has concluded. There is typically a delay of a few days between the date the study sponsor or investigator submitted the study record and the first posted date.
August 15, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

Last Update Posted

The most recent date on which changes to a study record were made available on ClinicalTrials.gov. There may be a delay between when the changes were submitted to ClinicalTrials.gov by the study's sponsor or investigator (the last update submitted date) and the last update posted date.
December 12, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

The most recent date on which the study sponsor or investigator submitted changes to a study record that are consistent with National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review criteria. It is the responsibility of the sponsor or investigator to ensure that the study record is consistent with the NLM QC review criteria.
December 11, 2025

Last Verified

Last Verified

The most recent date on which the study sponsor or investigator confirmed the information about a clinical study on ClinicalTrials.gov as accurate and current. If a study with a recruitment status of recruiting; not yet recruiting; or active, not recruiting has not been confirmed within the past 2 years, the study's recruitment status is shown as unknown.
December 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

Other Study ID Numbers

Identifiers or ID numbers other than the NCT number that are assigned to a clinical study by the study's sponsor, funders, or others. These numbers may include unique identifiers from other trial registries and National Institutes of Health grant numbers.
  • 609734

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

Cookie Settings

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. For more details carefully read our Privacy and Cookies Policy. ...>>>You can change your preferences or withdraw your consent at any time by deleting the cookies from your website or computer as described in the policy. Please accept it and choose your preferences by ticking the corresponding boxes in the "Manage Settings" section below. Please carefully read our Terms of Service before you proceed with using any part of this website.
«Manage Settings