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BIRES: Building body image resilience in populations undergoing rapid economic development

BIRES Building body image resilience


Building body image resilience in populations undergoing rapid economic development (BIRes) is a five-year (2024-2029) ERC Advanced Grant – UKRI Horizon funded project (€2.5M), which encompasses multiple low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in Latin America and Africa. 

BIRes combines large scale, controlled educational intervention studies with adolescents and their parents, and focused qualitative and indigenous participatory research methods with whole communities, to establish cross- and intra-cultural constants and diversity in the mechanisms for reducing body dissatisfaction (BD) and its downstream outcomes. The Caribbean Coasts of Colombia serves as foundational case study to then extend into wider regions of Latin America (Mexico, Honduras and Peru) and Africa (Kenya, Zimbabwe & the Republic of South Africa).

To find out more about the intervention and get access to materials please visit:

Soy Como Soy for the Spanish version

I Am Who I Am for the English version

Wristbands show the key learning points of the Soy Como Soy intervention: be yourself, check if it's real, don't compare, and celebrate differences.

Collaborating institutions