The Effectiveness of Narrative Therapy on Body Checking and Disordered Eating Behaviors in Female Adolescents

Background: Body checking and disordered eating behaviors are common problems among adolescents and young people which can be precursors to eating disorders. The research aimed to examine the effectiveness of group narrative therapy in decreasing body checking and disordered eating behaviors.Method: This experimental, intervention-control, study was conducted on 920 female 11-16-year-old students selected by multistage random method. They responded to two scales of body checking behaviors and disordered eating behaviors. Among 188 female students who gained one standard deviation above the mean score of the group in both scales, 40 students were randomly divided into the experimental and control groups. Then, the members of the experimental group participated in narrative therapy intervention. After the intervention, both scales were distributed among the experimental and control groups. Data were analyzed by the use of descriptive statistics and multivariate covariance method.Results: The results revealed that compared with the control group, narrative therapy significantly reduced body checking and disordered eating behaviors in the experimental group (P<0.01). Conclusion: According to the findings of the present study, the investigation of effectiveness of narrative therapy on these behaviors can provide valuable implications about the mental health of individuals.