Body Confident Coaching: Acceptability Testing of a Web-Based Body Image Intervention for Coaches of Adolescent Girls

According to the World Health Organization, only 15% of 11-17-year-old girls meet the recommended daily physical movement guidelines (e.g., 60-minutes per day). Despite extensive research highlighting the protective factors associated with sport on both mental and physical health, body image concerns are a key barrier to girls' participation in and enjoyment of sport. Sports-related environments and society more broadly further exacerbate these concerns through harmful gender stereotypes that perpetuate female objectification, discrimination, and harassment. This includes the promotion of unrealistic and sexualized appearances of female athletes, uncomfortable and objectifying uniforms, and appearance and competence-related teasing from male and female peers, as well as coaches.

To date, research has predominantly focused on athletes' perceptions of the extent to which coaches perpetuate athletes' body image concerns. However, several recent studies have been conducted exploring the perception of coaches and their role in addressing body image concerns among girls in sport. The findings of these studies indicate that although coaches are often able to identify body image concerns among their athletes, they are apprehensive to explicitly address these issues for fear of making the concerns worse. As such, systemic strategies are required within sport settings that upskill coaches as well as athletes and significant others in the athletes' environment to address body image concerns among adolescent girls in sport. At present, few such programs exist, and limited body image resources are available to coaches, despite coaches perceiving body image education as a personal and professional requirement for working with young people.

The current research will test the first online body image program for coaches. The Body Confident Coaching program was co-created with girls and coaches through an international multi-disciplinary partnership between academics, health professionals, industry, and community organizations. Multi-disciplinary partnerships can create a supportive landscape by upskilling athletes and coaches in dealing with body image concerns, which will likely lead to sustained sports participation and biopsychosocial benefits.

As such, the aim of the present study is to conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability of the Body Confident Coaching program. The program consists of five 20-minute modules that coaches complete online. Each session tackles a distinct theme related to body image in the sporting context. Outcomes will be assessed at pre- and post-intervention and include coaches' self-efficacy to tackle athletes' body image concerns (primary outcome), coaches' fat phobia and gender essentialist beliefs (secondary outcomes), and feasibility, acceptability, and adherence (process outcomes). The comparison control arm will be a waitlist control condition.

To undertake this project, coaches will be randomized into the intervention group or the control group, with 60 coaches anticipated in each arm. Those in the intervention condition will complete baseline assessments (target outcomes and demographic information), take part in the two-week intervention, and then complete the post-intervention assessments (target outcomes and feasibility and acceptability measures). Those in the waitlist control condition will complete the baseline assessments (target outcomes and demographic information) and a second assessment two weeks later (target outcomes only), after which they will get access to the online intervention. However, their engagement with the intervention will not be monitored or assessed. At completion of the post-intervention survey, all participants will receive a debrief form, outlining the study aims and objectives, and additional resources for body image and eating concerns. Lastly, to compensate participants for their time, coaches will receive an electronic voucher to the value of $25 dollars.

The investigators hypothesize that coaches who take part in the Body Confident Coaching intervention will report greater self-efficacy in identifying and tackling body image concerns among their athletes, and lower levels of fat phobia and gender essentialism at post-intervention than coaches who do not take part in the intervention.