Prevention and Intervention in Eating Disorders

Dear Colleagues,

Eating disorders (EDs) are complex psychiatric conditions with both medical and social-cognitive symptoms and consequences. Most individuals with EDs do not receive treatment, and treatment results in the lasting remission of symptoms for less than half of patients. Thus, EDs follow a chronic and relapsing course and are marked by distress, impairment, and an increased risk of future obesity, depression, suicide, and mortality, with high costs to public health.

EDs present a significant threat to the health of adolescents and young adults, yet remain under-treated at a population level. Furthermore, EDs have historically been thought to afflict “skinny, white, affluent girls” (the SWAG stereotype). As such, higher-weight individuals, racial/ethnic minorities, sexual and gender minorities, those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, and males may not recognize their need for treatment, may not be properly screened for EDs, and/or may not be referred to treatment. Therefore, effective interventions for EDs among these groups are required.

One barrier to mental health care is the fact that the prevalence of EDs is more than high enough to overwhelm the number of professionals qualified to treat and support people with these complex disorders. Furthermore, EDs affect individuals across cultures, ethnicities, gender identities, age, and socioeconomic status. Thus, developing effective ED prevention programs that can be broadly implemented is a priority for public health.

Fortunately, there are several promising preventive interventions for ED risk factors, including cognitive dissonance, cognitive behavior, healthy lifestyle modification, psychoeducation, interpersonal psychotherapy, and media literacy. However, as observed in intervention studies, most preventive programs have been developed for “skinny, white, affluent girls” (the SWAG stereotype). Therefore, the development of preventive programs for marginalized groups (i.e., women, people of disabilities, people of color, sexual and gender minorities; ethnic and racial marginalized groups; people of lower socio-economic status, and others) and other at-risk groups (i.e., athletes, ballet dancers, fashion models, among other) is welcome. The development of technology-based interventions has also been encouraged. The use of innovative approaches has demonstrated promising results and is especially vital in enhancing the interactivity and attractiveness of the intervention, and has contributed to the broad dissemination of existing prevention programs.

We are pleased to invite you to provide clinicians and researchers with evidence-based interventions for EDs. Pilot studies and randomized controlled trials that test the efficacy and/or effectiveness of ED prevention programs among marginalized and other at-risk groups (but not limited to these groups) are welcome. We also encourage the submission of review articles and meta-analyses.

Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of existing intervention or prevention programs;
• Scoping reviews of available intervention or prevention programs among marginalized and other at-risk groups;
• Pilot studies and randomized controlled trials of intervention or ED prevention programs.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Pedro Henrique Berbert De Carvalho
Dr. Ana Carolina Soares Amaral
Dr. Karin Louise Lenz Dunker
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• eating disorders
• body image
• risk factors
• prevention
• intervention
• sexual and gender minorities
• marginalized groups
• efficacy
• efficiency
• technology-based interventions