Body focused gratitude for adolescents.

Body image concerns are a prevalent and significant concern among adolescent populations. Negative perception of one’s body is associated with a number of maladaptive outcomes that can negatively impact quality of life. As such, there is a critical need for efficacious interventions that address body image concerns in adolescents. When exploring body image interventions utilized in other populations, gratitude interventions have offered a promising approach to targeting an individual’s perception of his or her physical being. One such gratitude intervention utilized within a young adult population is body-focused gratitude. The present study is the first randomized control trial that utilized a body focused gratitude intervention to target body image concerns among adolescents ages 15 to 18 years. High school students ages 15 to 18 years completed baseline measures of body image and feelings of positive emotions and were then randomly assigned to either the control group or body-focused gratitude intervention group. Data were gathered post-intervention and at a one-week follow up to explore the effect of the intervention on adolescent body image. The results indicated that there were significant baseline mean differences on body esteem or body satisfaction between the control group and the experimental group. There were no significant mean differences in body esteem between the groups. While the intervention did not result in increased feelings of body esteem, future research is needed to elucidate the impact of body focused gratitude on an adolescent population.