The Eating and Body Image (EBI) research team is a group of undergraduate and graduate students at Western Washington University who conduct research, run interventions, and engage in advocacy related to body liberation, food and body justice, and prevention of disordered eating. The EBI team is student-centered; students are involved in all aspects of the research process. Students help to design research projects, create materials for interventions, run body image groups, and collect survey and interview data related to research studies. In addition, the EBI team engages in body advocacy work on and off campus.

The goal of our work is to understand — and mitigate — the different ways that eating, food, and weight issues permeate our lives and create individual and societal inequalities (including eating disorders, weight bias, food insecurity, and other obstacles).

The EBI team is directed by Dr. Anna Ciao in the Department of Psychology.