Prevention of Eating Disorders

Primary eating disorder prevention aims to prevent the development of eating disorders, prevent risk factors, and promote protective factors. Primary prevention measures are directed at healthy individuals without eating disorder symptoms. The goal of secondary prevention is early detection and intervention to prevent the progression of the disorder and the development of a full syndrome disorder. Tertiary prevention includes measures for relapse prevention. In particular, measures for secondary prevention of eating disorders are considered promising to reduce body image problems and disturbed eating behavior. Internet-based approaches offer the potential to reach a wide range of risk populations and to design eating disorder prevention flexibly. The combination of obesity and eating disorder prevention offers great advantages due to the often simultaneous occurrence of overweight and unhealthy weight-reducing measures.