Sustainability and dissemination of interventions beyond the efficacy phase is generally minimal due to the limited resources of researchers. ДЄlthough effective in creating some behavior change, these interventions are very resource intensive. For example, Set Your Body Free, one of the programs found to be effective over the longer term (significant improvements in body dissatisfaction and disordered eating) in the aforementioned review, was an intensive CBT-based, small-group intervention among women in midlife that ran in 2В hour sessions over 8вЂ‰weeks.

Interventions ranged in length from 5.5 to 155вЂ‰h, and 70% of the effective interventions were delivered by trained facilitators. The most effective interventions (with improvements at post-test and follow-up) for this age group utilized Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy while interventions with improvements at post-test only used mindfulness, or physical activity such as dance and yoga.

In their review of body image interventions among women in mid-life (aged 35вЂ“55), Lewis-Smith and colleagues identified only 11 interventions, of which 64% demonstrated a significant improvement on at least one measure of body image at post-test. While some school-based and university interventions have been effective, there are very few programs to improve body image for women who are over the age of 25. However, in the past 20вЂ‰years, the development of interventions for improving body image have focused mostly on adolescents and college-aged women. The extensive impact of negative body image on physical and mental health has led researchers to develop intervention programs to address this public health issue. Body appreciation is known to increase with age, and women with higher levels of body appreciation are more likely to have higher self-esteem, and engage in positive health behaviours such as physical activity and intuitive eating. Body appreciation and positive body image are not just the opposite of body dissatisfaction, but refer to a respect, love, and gratitude for the body, and what it can do. This can result in a wide range of physical and mental health issues, including smoking, depression, and poorer quality of life. The majority of women are dissatisfied with their bodies. Future experimental research should explore the efficacy of Embrace as a brief and engaging intervention for improving body image in adult women. ConclusionsДЄdult women reported numerous positive responses to their viewing of the film. Women who had seen the film also reported significantly higher levels of body appreciation (Body Appreciation Scale medium effect size), and significantly lower levels of internalization of body ideals, self-objectification, body shame, and dietary restraint, than women who had not seen the film. Qualitative analysis of open-ended data asking about the changes participants made after viewing the film revealed that a large proportion (44.1%) felt they had higher levels of body appreciation and body confidence, many reported engaging less in dieting (19.6%), and some reported lowered disordered eating (2.8%), since seeing Embrace. Overall, the majority of participants had seen the film ( nВ =вЂ‰1053, 73.7%).

Participants completed a cross-sectional online questionnaire regarding whether they had seen the film, their perceptions of the impact of the film on their lives and body image, and a range of standardized scales measuring psychological wellbeing. Participants were 1429 women aged 18вЂ“77 who were members of the Facebook group вЂBody Image MovementвЂ™ facilitated by Taryn Brumfitt, who also directed the documentary Embrace. In addition, to establish the potential for the documentary to be used as an intervention to improve adult body image, a naturalistic study was conducted to examine whether any differences on measures of body image were apparent among women who had, versus those who had not, seen the film. The aim of this project was to examine the qualitative responses of adult women who had seen the feature-length documentary film вЂ EmbraceвЂ™.

Embrace documentary