"Dissonance" therapy aids eating disorder symptoms

NEW YORK, March 3 (Reuters) Group therapy using a technique based on the theory of ''cognitive dissonance'' may help young women at risk of eating disorders, new research suggests.

The study included 93 college women who responded to a call for women who were not satisfied with their bodies. Both interventions lasted about 6 weeks.

The researchers found that group therapy, once-weekly for 6 weeks, relieved some of the students' body dissatisfaction, unhealthy eating habits and symptoms of anxiety.

The other approach that was used -- yoga -- failed to spur any improvements, according to findings published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

However, the researchers note that 6 weeks was a relatively short period to learn yoga, and previous studies that found a relationship between yoga and a reduction in eating disorder symptoms included women who practiced yoga for about six years.

The problem of ''disordered eating'' is common among college women. Though they fall short of an official eating disorder diagnosis, these women suffer from body dissatisfaction and fear of gaining weight, and often use unhealthy weight control measures like fasting, vomiting and laxative and diuretic abuse. Many go through cycles of binge-eating.

The idea of dissonance-based therapy is to address a person's ''competing ideas,'' explained lead study author Karen S. Mitchell of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. An example would be women who are unhappy with their body size, but know that society's ''ideal'' for the female body is unhealthy.

The therapy involved group discussions that focused on topics like the negative consequences of the ''thin-ideal'' and media images of women. At the end of the study, the women showed improvements in measures of body image, unhealthy eating and weight-control habits, and anxiety.

The results are encouraging, Mitchell told Reuters Health.

Similar group meetings, she said, could be offered on college campuses to help female students with body-image and eating issues.

Women with full-blown eating disorders would need more intensive therapy, however, Mitchell noted.

Unlike the dissonance-based therapy, she noted, the yoga classes were not specifically geared toward body image and unhealthy dieting. Among the goals of yoga are a calmer mind and self-acceptance, but that addresses disordered eating in a much more ''indirect'' way than the dissonance-based therapy did, Mitchell and her colleagues point out.

More research, Mitchell said, should continue to look at the effects of yoga on body dissatisfaction.

REUTERS PDM RK0940