ARE 2 INTERVENTIONS WORSE THAN NONE - JOINT PRIMARY AND SECONDARY PREVENTION OF EATING DISORDERS IN COLLEGE FEMALES

Prevention programs for eating disorders attempt to simultaneously pre vent new cases from arising (primary prevention) and encourage student s who already have symptoms to seek early treatment (secondary prevent ion), even though ideal strategies for these 2 types of prevention may be incompatible with each other. In the present study, an eating diso rder prevention program was evaluated in a sample of female college fr eshmen. In the intervention, classmates who had recovered from eating disorders described their experiences and provided information about e ating disorders. At follow-up, intervention participants had slightly more symptoms of eating disorders than did controls. The program may h ave been ineffective in preventing eating disorders because by reducin g the stigma of these disorders (to encourage students with problems t o seek help), the program may have inadvertently normalized them.