Combined Eating Disorder and Weight Loss Online Guided-Self Help Intervention

Online, guided self-help interventions have been used for weight-loss (WL), as well as for treatment of eating disorders (EDs), separately, but no program exists to manage these conditions together. To date, a combination ED and WL intervention has been piloted in adolescents who endorsed high-risk ED behavior and had overweight, and revealed moderate improvement in ED behavior and WL. Thus, the use of online intervention for ED psychopathology and WL in individuals with clinical and sub-clinical EDs is the next step. Given Dr. Wilfley's past expertise with ED and WL interventions, and particularly her involvement with online interventions for these issues her mentorship will support the carrying out of aims for this proposal. The goal of this proposal is to implement a program to reduce weight and shape concerns, reduce disordered eating symptoms such as binging and compensatory behaviors associated with binge-type EDs, while also reducing weight for college students with comorbid overweight/obesity. This project will pilot an online, guided self-help ED intervention that offers cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) based tools to improve ED symptoms, while also teaching them healthy methods of behavioral WL, for individuals with clinical/sub-clinical binge-type EDs with comorbid overweight/obesity in order to examine effectiveness compared to referral to Student Health Services for ED and WL concerns.