This is the first authored volume to offer a detailed, integrated analysis of the field of eating problems and disorders with the theory, research, and practical experience form community and developmental psychology, public health, psychiatry, and dietetics. The book highlights connections between the prevention of eating problems and disorders and (a) theory and research in the areas of prevention and health promotion; (b) theoretical models of risk development and prevention (e.g., developmental psychopathology, social cognitive theory, feminist theory, and ecological approaches); and (c) related research on the prevention of smoking and alcohol use. It is the most comprehensive book available on the study of prevention programs, especially on those developed for children and adolescents.

The Prevention of Eating Problems and Eating Disorders addresses controversial issues such as:

• Methodologies for assessing and establishing prevention
• The implications of neuroscience for prevention
• Dramatic increases in the incidence of obesity
• The role boys, men, and the media have on body image
• Prevention programming for minority groups
• Whether our focus should be on primary or secondary  (targeted) prevention

CONTENTS:

Part I: Introduction
1 – Introduction to Prevention
2 – Defining Eating Disorders
3 – Important Controversies

Part II Guides to Prevention: Models and Risk Factors
4 – Developmental Psychopathology
5 – Risk Factors as Guides to Prevention Program Design
6 – Social Cognitive Approaches
7 – The Non–Specific Vulnerability–Stressor Model
8 – The Feminist–Empowerment–Relational Model: A Critical Social Perspective

Part III Review of Prevention Research
9 – Prevention of Body Image Disturbances and Disordered Eating: A Review of the Research

Part IV Prevention Research: Lessons from the Field
10 – Lessons from the Field I: Curriculum and Program Development
11 – Lessons from the Field II: Practical Issues in Program Evaluation
12 – Changing the Ecology
13 – Media Literacy as Prevention
14 – Deciding the Level of Prevention: Universal, Selective, or Targeted?

Part IV Conclusions and Future Directions
15 – Conclusions and Future Directions

REVIEWS:

“… written by the two most important scholars in the preventiotn of eating disorsders … I would make it a required text for my course.”
— Ruth Streigel–Moore, Wesleyan University

“I am especially impressed with how Levine and Smolak incorporate literature from a broad range of disciplines … it is written in a very accessible style that a wide variety of readers are likely to feel comfortable with.”
— S. Bryn Austin, Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School

“… it provides a link between theoretical models that exist in the field of health education and their potential application to the prevention of eating disorders … the book will be of interest to educators, prevention experts, graduate students, and practitioners.”
— Gail McVey, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, CA