Body Image Resilience in Guidance, Health, and Teaching (BRIGHT)
Start date
January 2026End date
September 2026Overview
Negative body image is a growing public health concern, particularly for young women navigating highly visual social media platforms. Research at the University of Surrey from Dr Fabio Fasoli and Dr Erica Hepper, has shown that repeated exposure to idealised body imagery online can reduce body satisfaction and increase body concerns, while alternative content, such as body-positive and humorous parody images, can support a healthier, more resilient body image.
The Body Image Resilience in Guidance, Health, and Teaching (BRIGHT) IAA funded project builds on this evidence to explore how research insights can be translated into real-world practice. BRIGHT brings together researchers, educators, healthcare professionals, and young people with lived experience to address how body image is currently supported in education and clinical settings, and to identify where important gaps remain.
Rather than creating a single intervention, the project will focus on listening, mapping, and co-creating. Through stakeholder engagement, a desk-based scoping review, and a series of co-production workshops, BRIGHT will identify shared priorities, unmet needs, and practical opportunities for applying research-informed approaches to strengthen body image resilience. The project will also establish a cross-sector network to support future collaboration and long-term impact.
Team
Dr Fabio Fasoli
Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology
Biography
I received my PhD in 2011 from the University of Trento (Italy). After that, I held postdoctoral fellowships at CITEC/University of Bielefeld, the University of Padua, ISCTE-IUL, and the University of Milano-Bicocca. In October 2016, I joined the University of Surrey as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow and have been here ever since. I am the Programme Leader for the Social Psychology MSc, the co-director of the Sex, Gender, and Sexualities Research Centre, and the current Chair of the University Rainbow Network. I am also the Secretary of the International Association of Language and Social Psychology (IALSP)
Dr Erica Hepper
Senior Lecturer in Personality/Social Psychology
Biography
I completed my undergraduate and postgraduate training at the University of Southampton. My PhD research focused on adult attachment and the maintenance of self-views and was conducted with the supervision of Dr Kathy Carnelley. I continued to work there as a postdoctoral fellow in the Centre for Research on Self and Identity with Professor Constantine Sedikides before joining the University of Surrey as a Lecturer in October 2012.
Partners
Planned Impact
BRIGHT is designed as a foundation-building project that creates clear and actionable pathways for future impact in education and healthcare. Its central aim is to support professionals who work with young people to better address body image concerns in a social media–saturated world, using approaches grounded in psychological evidence.
Planned impacts include:
- A strengthened cross-sector network connecting educators, clinical practitioners, researchers, charities, and young people with lived experience, creating a shared space for dialogue, learning, and collaboration.
- Improved understanding of current practice, through a scoping review of existing body image resources used in schools and clinical settings, highlighting what is already working well and where evidence-informed approaches are missing.
- Co-produced impact pathways, developed through interactive workshops, that outline realistic next steps for embedding research into educational guidance, therapeutic tools, and professional practice.
- Accessible public-facing outputs, including a project website, short animated video, blogs, and a creative “toolbox of possibilities” that captures insights, priorities, and ideas generated during the project.
In the longer term, BRIGHT will lay the groundwork for follow-on funding, collaborative research bids, and the development of practical resources such as educator toolkits or clinical materials.
