Web-Based Body Image Intervention for Coaches of Adolescent Girls - Pilot

May 22, 2023 updated by: University of the West of England

Body Confident Coaching: Acceptability Testing of a Web-Based Body Image Intervention for Coaches of Adolescent Girls

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.

To date, research has predominantly focused on athletes' perceptions of the extent to which coaches perpetuate athletes' body image concerns. However, several recent studies have been conducted exploring the perception of coaches and their role in addressing body image concerns among girls in sport. The findings of these studies indicate that although coaches are often able to identify body image concerns among their athletes, they are apprehensive to explicitly address these issues for fear of making the concerns worse. As such, systemic strategies are required within sport settings that upskill coaches as well as athletes and significant others in the athletes' environment to address body image concerns among adolescent girls in sport. At present, few such programs exist, and limited body image resources are available to coaches, despite coaches perceiving body image education as a personal and professional requirement for working with young people.

The current research will test the first online body image program for coaches. The Body Confident Coaching 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 athletes and 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 Coaching program. The program consists of five 20-minute modules that coaches complete online. Each session tackles a distinct theme related to body image in the sporting context. Outcomes will be assessed at pre- and post-intervention and include coaches' self-efficacy to tackle athletes' body image concerns (primary outcome), coaches' fat phobia and gender essentialist beliefs (secondary outcomes), and feasibility, acceptability, and adherence (process outcomes). The comparison control arm will be a waitlist control condition.

To undertake this project, coaches will be randomized into the intervention group or the control group, with 60 coaches anticipated in each arm. Those in the intervention condition will complete baseline assessments (target outcomes and demographic information), take part in the two-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 two weeks later (target outcomes only), after which they will get access to the online 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, coaches will receive an electronic voucher to the value of $25 dollars.

The investigators hypothesize that coaches who take part in the Body Confident Coaching intervention will report greater self-efficacy in identifying and tackling body image concerns among their athletes, and lower levels of fat phobia and gender essentialism at post-intervention than coaches who do not take part in the intervention.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

97

Phase

  • 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 Locations

  • United Kingdom
      • Bristol, United Kingdom, BS16 1QY
        • Centre for Appearance Research, University of the West of England

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

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Current coaches of adolescent girls
  • English speaking
  • US resident

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Participants under 18 years of age
  • Coaches outside of the US
  • Coaches who only coach adult women or men/boys

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: Triple

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Body Confident Coaching
Participants in the intervention condition will take part in an online program consisting of five modules over two weeks.
Behavioral: Body Confident Coaching
The Body Confident Coaching program is a five-module online program aimed at upskilling coaches in identifying and tackling body image concerns among girls in sport. Each module will take approximately 20 minutes to complete and consists of educational content, interactive elements (quizzes, checklists, opinion polls, reflective exercises), and additional resources.
No Intervention: Waitlist control
Participants will not be explicitly told their study condition, although they will be made aware of the assessment time points and whether they receive the intervention between T1 and T2 (intervention) or after T2 (waitlist control). Following completion of post-intervention assessments (T2), the control condition will participate in the intervention; but, they will not be monitored or assessed.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in coaches' self-efficacy in body image (assessed via the Coaches' Self-Efficacy in Body Image Scale)
Time Frame: Baseline, pre-intervention; immediately after the intervention (2 weeks later)
The Coaches' Self-Efficacy in Body Image Scale (CSEBIS) assesses coaches' ability to describe, recognize, support, and prevent body image concerns among their athletes. CSEBIS scores range from 0-10 with higher scores on the CSEBIS indicating higher levels of self-efficacy.
Baseline, pre-intervention; immediately after the intervention (2 weeks later)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in coaches' fat phobia (assessed via the Fat Phobia Scale)
Time Frame: Baseline, pre-intervention; immediately after the intervention (2 weeks later)
The Fat Phobia Scale (FPS) is a 14-item questionnaire regarding beliefs and feelings towards people who are fat or obese. FPS scores range from 1-5 with higher scores on the FPS indicating higher levels of fat phobia.
Baseline, pre-intervention; immediately after the intervention (2 weeks later)
Change in coaches' gender essentialism (assessed via the Gender Essentialism Scale)
Time Frame: Baseline, pre-intervention; immediately after the intervention (2 weeks later)
The Gender Essentialism Scale (GES) is a 25-item scale, rated from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), and assesses sex-role egalitarianism, support for discriminatory practices, and perceived fairness of gender-based treatment. GES scores range from 1-5 with higher scores on the GES indicating higher levels of gender essentialism.
Baseline, pre-intervention; immediately after the intervention (2 weeks later)

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Total intervention adherence (assessed through session completion)
Time Frame: Immediately after the intervention
Total intervention adherence will be assessed by the investigators as number of participants who complete the full intervention.
Immediately after the intervention
Total acceptability of the intervention (assessed via a self-report questionnaire)
Time Frame: Immediately after the intervention
Coaches will complete feasibility and acceptability measures via a self-report questionnaire on a scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree) within the following domains: 1) affective attitude (e.g., I liked this program); 2) burden (e.g., it was easy to follow the content of the program); 3) ethicality (e.g., I think this program is appropriate for coaches in my sport); 4) self-efficacy (e.g., I am confident that I will use the techniques I learned from this program); 5) perceived effectiveness (e.g., the program was successful in improving my knowledge about body image); and 6) content (e.g., how easy or difficult was it to follow the program?).
Immediately after the intervention

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

University of the West of England

Collaborators

Unilever R&D
Nike
Laureus
Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport

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)

May 1, 2022

Primary Completion (Actual)

September 1, 2022

Study Completion (Actual)

September 1, 2022

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

March 18, 2022

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 30, 2022

First Posted (Actual)

April 7, 2022

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 24, 2023

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 22, 2023

Last Verified

May 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • HAS.21.03.120b

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.

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