Blog post: An interview with Dr Carolyn Black Becker
Posted by Laura on 12 June 2025
One of our key projects here at The Succeed Foundation is the Succeed Body Image Programme, which consists of workshops that promote healthy body image, challenge the thin ideal of female beauty, and help prevent the onset of eating disorders.
Dr Carolyn Black Becker and Dr Eric Stice in the United States of America wrote the original programme, and we are now rolling out the British version in universities around the UK. We are privileged to have one of the authors, Dr Becker, as a member of our Scientific Advisory Board and her input into our work is invaluable.
Dr Becker kindly agreed to answer some questions for us regarding her work but first an outline of her professional background:
Dr. Carolyn Black Becker is a Professor of Psychology at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas and a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in the treatment and prevention of eating disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She also is Co-Director of the Body Project Collaborative, which she co-founded to support dissemination of the cognitive dissonance-based Body Project eating disorders prevention program.
The primary focus of Dr. Becker’s teaching, research, and clinical work is the implementation of scientifically supported prevention and treatment interventions in clinical and real world settings. She is the author of numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and has co-authored a book on the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. She also was the lead author for two sister programs to the Body Project: Reflections: Body Image Program in the United States and the Succeed Body Image Program in the U.K.
Dr. Becker has been conducting research with female athletes since 2007, and the United States National Institute of Mental Health has funded her research on the prevention of eating disorders with female athletes. She has over a decade of experience implementing and studying peer-led prevention programs and pioneered the use of peers to implement evidence-based prevention programs.
Dr. Becker is a member of the Eating Disorder Research Society and a Fellow of the Academy of Eating Disorders. She also serves as a board member of AED and as associate editor of Behaviour Research and Therapy. In 2009, she was a co-recipient of the AED’s Research-Practice Partnership Award for her work in disseminating empirically supported, dissonance-based body image programming. Dr. Becker also was the 2009 recipient of the Lori Irving Award for Excellence in Eating Disorders Prevention and Awareness granted by the National Eating Disorders Association, and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.
What is the most interesting or surprising thing you have learnt about this subject over your years of research and practice?
How much one should really learn to understand eating disorders. Eating disorders are stereotypically thought of as encompassing anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa in adolescent girls and young women. But if you limit your study to these instances, you are missing a big piece of the puzzle. It also is insufficient to address eating disorders from a purely biological or sociocultural perspective. Further, I think to fully understand eating disorders you need to understand the larger food context - and the massive changes that have occurred and what and how most people eat.
What frustrates you most about general attitudes and/or treatment of eating disorders?
People don't have adequate access to evidence based interventions, and there is inadequate funding to identify new interventions for those how don't respond to what we already have.
If a parent is concerned that their child may be developing an eating disorder how would you advise them to deal with the situation?
Get to an expert quickly. But do your homework to make sure the person really is an expert in this area.
What one thing do you think society as a whole can do to help prevent the onset of eating disorders?
Because eating disorders are "caused" by a perfect storm of many factors (and different factors in different people) I don't think there is one thing that can be done to prevent eating disorders. We are going to need to do many things, and it isn't clear what some of those things are. However, a key step will be for organizations to follow in the footsteps of Succeed and help disseminate evidence based prevention programs, versus ones that are untested.
How did you meet Succeed CEO, Karine and why did you become involved with The Succeed Foundation?
I met Karine through the Academy of Eating Disorders at an annual meeting of the Eating Disorder Research Society. I was immediately impressed by her dedication and energy. We began talking and my involvement with the Succeed Foundation developed organically.
For information about the Succeed Body Image Programme, click HERE and to learn more about Dr Carolyn Black Becker, you can visit her page at Trinity University in Texas HERE.
