The effectiveness of an educational program based on mindfulness on body image in adolescents with obesity

Nowadays, obesity as one of the most important public health problems of adolescents has increased widely in the whole world. This research was conducted with the aim of determining the effectiveness of an educational program based on mindfulness on body image in adolescents with obesity.

The current research was of quasi-experimental type with pre-test, post-test and control group. 50 students from the statistical population of students suffering from obesity in one district of Tehran city were selected by the available method and were randomly divided into two experimental and control groups. The students of the experimental and control groups responded to the body image concern questionnaire (Littleton et al., 2005) in two stages, pre-test and post-test. The experimental group received the developed program based on mindfulness for 14 sessions. The data were analyzed using covariance analysis.

Descriptive results showed that the concern about the body image of teenagers in the experimental group decreased in the post-test compared to the pre-test. The results of the covariance test also showed that there is a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in terms of body image concern (p<0.0001 and F=38.86).

Based on the results, paying attention to the training program based on mindfulness as an effective method to reduce the body image of obese teenagers can be useful.