Eric Stice

Eric Stice, PhD, Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine 

Research Description: A major focus of Dr. Stice’s research program is to design and evaluate prevention programs for eating disorders, obesity, and depression and to broadly implement them to reduce the population prevalence of these public health problems. His team created a body acceptance intervention that uses dissonance-induction to reduce risk for onset of eating disorders. It is the only prevention program to significantly reduce future onset of eating disorders in multiple trials. A recent trial found that it produced a 77% reduction in future onset of eating disorders over a 2-year follow-up. This prevention program was confirmed to reduce fMRI-assessed brain reward region response to thin models. This prevention program has been implemented to over 6 million adolescent girls/young women in 140 countries, including at over 200 US universities. His team also developed a highly effective cognitive behavioral depression prevention program that is being implemented throughout the US by the New York Foundling and the UK by Action for Children. In addition, his team uses brain imaging to identify neural vulnerability factors that increase risk for unhealthy weight gain and is evaluating interventions that target the identified neural vulnerability factors.

Dr. Stice has recently become interested in preventing eating pathology among young women with type 1 diabetes because they are at ultra-high-risk for developing eating disorders, which is associated with poor blood glucose management and serious diabetes complications. In collaboration with Dr. Wisting he adapted an eating disorder prevention program for young women with type 1 diabetes. He is also interested in examining the factors that increase risk for onset of eating pathology among young women with type 1 diabetes.

Selected relevant publications (Stanford DRC members are in BOLD):

  1. Stice, E., Desjardins, C., Rohde, P., & Shaw, H. (2021). Sequencing of symptom emergence in anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and purging disorder and relations of prodromal symptoms to future onset of these disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 130, 377-387.

  2. Stice, E., Onipede, A., Shaw, H., Rohde, P., & Gau, J. (2021). Effectiveness of the Body Project eating disorder prevention program for different racial and ethnic groups and an evaluation of the potential benefits of ethnic matching. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 89, 1007-1019.

  3. Stice, E., Yokum, S., Rohde, P., Cloud, K., & Desjardins, C. (2021). Comparing healthy adolescent females with and without parental history of eating pathology on neural responsivity to food and thin models and other potential risk factors. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 130, 608-619.

  4. Stice, E., Yokum, S., Rohde, P., Gau, J., & Shaw, H. (2021). Evidence that a novel transdiagnostic eating disorder treatment reduces reward region response to the thin beauty ideal and high-calorie foods. Psychological Medicine, 1-11. Doi;10.1017/S0033291721004049.

  5. Wisting, L., Haugvik, S., Wennersberg, A. L., Hage, T. W., Stice, E., Olmsted, M. P., Ghaderi, A., Brunborg, C., Skrivarhaug, T., Dahl-Jørgensen, K., & Rø, Ø. (2021). Feasibility of a virtually delivered eating disorder prevention program for young females with type 1 diabetes. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 54, 1696-1706.

  6. Stice, E., Rohde, P., Shaw, H., & Gau, J. (2020). Clinician-led, peer-led, and internet-delivered dissonance-based eating disorder prevention programs: Effectiveness of these delivery modalities through 4-yr follow-up. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 88, 481-494.