EMBRACED Lab

Elevating Minoritized Backgrounds in Research on Appearance Concerns and Eating Disorders Lab

The EMBRACED Lab, founded in 2025 at Suffolk University and Directed by Dr. Wesley R. Barnhart, has three primary research avenues: 1) to establish an empirical foundation for the inclusion of multicultural nuances (e.g., identity-specific stress) in eating disorders evidence-based practice; 2) to identify high-risk subgroups for eating disorder symptoms to inform the development of personalized treatment targets in LGBTQ+ individuals; and 3) to establish a global understanding of eating disorders through cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural partnerships. Collectively, these research avenues advance assessment, etiology, and intervention of eating disorders in minoritized and historically underrepresented populations.

To learn more about the EMBRACED Lab Director, Dr. Barnhart, and their research program, please visit their faculty page and the EMBRACED Lab website.

Current Research Projects & Sample Publications

Advancing Our Understanding of Minority/Intraminority Stress Frameworks of Eating Disorders in the LGBTQ+ Community

There are significant health disparities in eating and body image disturbances, as well as in eating disorders, in the LGBTQ+ community relative to their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts. As such, the EMBRACED Lab advances our understanding of how various forms of stress, including sexual minority, gender minority, and intraminority stress, explain disparities in the development and maintenance of eating and body image disturbances and eating disorders in the LGBTQ+ community (Barnhart et al., 2022; Barnhart et al., 2023; Barnhart et al., 2024; Barnhart et al., revision under review; Barnhart et al., under review). A primary avenue of this research strives to establish an empirical foundation for the inclusion of multicultural stressors in eating disorders evidence-based practice with the LGBTQ+ community.

We are currently pursuing longitudinal data collection (short- and long-term changes) to test the temporal associations between sexual minority and intraminority stress and eating and body image disturbances in a diverse, community sample of sexual minority women and men from the United States. This project, in collaboration with the RESET Lab (Director: Dr. Lexie Convertino) at California State University Dominguez Hills, builds on majority cross-sectional research to speak to the impact of stigma from outside and within the community on the development and/or maintenance of eating and body image disturbances in sexual minority women and men with other minoritized identities (e.g., Black gay men; Queer men living in larger bodies).

Barnhart, W.R., Costello, K., Burnette, C.B., Murray, M., He, J., Nagata, J.M., & Braden, A. (revision under review). Intraminority stress clarifies the link between LGBTQ+ community involvement and thinness-oriented disordered eating in sexual minority men. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity.

Barnhart, W.R., Cui, S., Cui, T., Hong, D., & He, J. (2023). Transgender congruence, body appreciation, body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating in Chinese transgender adults. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 56(6), 1125-1134.

Barnhart, W.R., Shepherd, B.F., Dixit, U., Costello, K., Convertino, A.D., Brown, T., Braden, A., Nagata, J.M., & He, J. (under review). Intraminority body stigma and body dissatisfaction explain prospective links between LGBTQ+ community involvement and thinness- and muscularity-oriented disordered eating in sexual minoritized men. International Journal of Eating Disorders.

Barnhart, W.R., Sun, H., Lin, Z., Lu, C., Han, X., & He, J. (2022). Integrating the tripartite influence, minority stress, and social comparison theories to explain body image and disordered eating in Chinese sexual minority men and women. Body Image, 43, 95-106.

Barnhart, W.R., Xiao, Y., Li, Y., Gaggiano, C., Jiang, Z., Wu, S., Cao, H., & He, J. (2024). Beyond age, BMI, gender identity, and gender minority stress, weight bias internalization is uniquely associated with more eating and body image disturbances and poor physical and mental health in Chinese gender-diverse adults. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 1-14.

Identifying High-Risk Subgroups for Eating Disorder Symptoms in the LGBTQ+ Community

The EMBRACED Lab also identifies high-risk subgroups for eating and body image disturbances and eating disorders within the LGBTQ+ community, which is not a monolithic group. Combining sexual and gender minorities into a singular group assumes all members of the LGBTQ+ community have the same experience of eating and body image disturbances and eating disorders. Informed by an intersectionality framework, we have identified significant heterogeneity in the experience of eating and body image disturbances in the LGBTQ+ community (Barnhart et al., under review). We have also identified the role of self-labeling specific to LGBTQ+ individuals (e.g., sexual self-labeling) on disparities in eating and body image disturbances within the community (Barnhart et al., 2024).

This preliminary research underscores significant heterogeneity in eating and body image disturbances among sexual and gender minorities which has theoretical and practice implications. On the side of theory, explanations for eating and body image disturbances in the LGBTQ+ community should be responsive to such nuances to describe these symptoms more accurately. On the side of practice, treatments may need to target the specific needs and attributes of these subgroups compared to the current “one size fits all approach.” Both implications take steps in the direction of reducing health disparities in eating and body image disturbances and eating disorders in the LGBTQ+ community.

Barnhart, W.R., Han, J., Zhang, Y., Luo, W., Li, Y., & He, J. (2024). Differences in thinness- and muscularity-oriented eating and body image disturbances and psychosocial well-being in Chinese sexual minority men reporting top, bottom, and versatile sexual self-labels. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 1-19.

Barnhart, W.R., Jordan, A.K., Angoff, H.D., Kalantzis, M.A., Johnson, A.C., Dial, L.A., & McDevitt, A.N. (under review). Adopting an intersectional approach to eating and body image disturbances in sexual and gender minority adults from the United States: A latent class analysis. Appetite.

Advancing a Global Understanding of Eating Disorders

Central to gaining a global understanding of eating disorders, including representation of identities and lived experiences outside of “SWAG” and “WEIRD” populations, is scale adaptation of self-report measures in non-Western cultural contexts, and effort facilitated through extensive cross-cultural collaborations with Dr. Jinbo He, Director of the SCI-Cream Lab at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. In several demonstrations of this, we have adapted self-report scales for the assessment of drive for muscularity in women (Tang, Barnhart, et al., 2022), body talk in women and men (He, Lu, Barnhart, et al., 2023), and appearance schemas (e.g., investment in one’s body image) in women and men (Chen, Wang, Barnhart, et al., 2024) from China.

In addition to scale adaption and psychometric assessment, the EMBRACED Lab is also interested in better understanding the etiology and correlates of eating disorders populations outside of the Western cultural context. In support of these interests, we have extended well-supported explanations of eating disorders to Chinese adolescent (Barnhart et al., 2023a; Barnhart et al., 2023b), emerging adult (Liang, Barnhart, et al., 2023), general adult (Barnhart et al., 2022), and older-aged adult (Barnhart, et al., 2023c) populations to provide theoretical and empirical backdrops for future research into treatments that are sensitive to diverse, non-Western populations across the lifespan.

Barnhart, W.R., Cui, T., Cui, S., Ren, Y., Ji, F., & He, J. (2023a). Exploring the prospective relationships between food addiction symptoms, weight bias internalization, and psychological distress in Chinese adolescents. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 1-11.

Barnhart, W.R., Cui, S., Cui, T., & He, J. (2023b). Relationships between weight bias internalization and biopsychosocial health outcomes: A prospective study in Chinese adolescents. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 56(5), 1021-2033.

Barnhart, W.R., Cui, T., Zhang, H., Cui, S., Zhao, Y., Lu, Y., & He, J. (2023c). Examining an integrated sociocultural and objectification model of thinness- and muscularity-oriented disordered eating in older Chinese men and women. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 56(10), 1875-1886.

Barnhart, W.R., Cui, T., Cui, S., Han, X., Lu, C., & He, J. (2022). Examining appearance pressures, thinness and muscularity internalizations, and social comparisons as correlates of drive for muscularity and thinness- oriented disordered eating in Chinese heterosexual men and women: Testing an integrated model. Body Image, 43, 429-439.

Chen, Y., Wang, S., Barnhart, W.R., Song, J., Cui, S., Ji, F., & He, J. (2024). Translation and validation of a Chinese version of the Appearance Schemas Inventory-Revised in Chinese adults. Body Image, 48, 101671.

He, J., Lu, Y., Barnhart, W.R., Tang, C., Zhang, H., Zhao, Y., & Lin, L. (2023). Translation and validation of a Chinese version of the Body Talk Scale for women and men. Journal of Eating Disorders, 11, 153.

Liang, G., Barnhart, W.R., Cheng, Y., Lu, T., & He, J. (2023). The interplay among BMI, body dissatisfaction, body appreciation, and body image flexibility in Chinese young adults: A network perspective. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 29, 192-201.

Tang, C., Barnhart, W.R., Zhang, B., & He, J. (2022). Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Female Muscularity Scale among Chinese young women. Eating and Weight Disorders – Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, 27(8), 3187–3196.

Current Graduate Students

Portrait of Kathryn PasquarielloKaty (she/her) is a fourth-year Clinical Psychology PhD student in the EMBRACED Lab. After graduating from Connecticut College in 2019, Katy worked at the Psychology Assessment Center of Massachusetts General Hospital, where she conducted neuropsychological assessments with individuals across the lifespan. This experience informed her graduate research, which focuses on understanding the neurocognitive correlates of psychological conditions, including eating disorders. She is interested in employing advanced analytic methods and technologies (i.e., network analysis; ecological momentary assessment) to understand these relationships cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Katy’s work will utilize network analysis to examine the architecture of eating disorder symptoms among sexual and gender minority populations. Outside of her clinical and research interests, Katy enjoys doing yoga, cooking, and spending time in the Berkshires, MA, with her family.

 

Interested in Joining the EMBRACED Lab?

Graduate students seeking admission into the PhD program in clinical psychology are encouraged to visit the departmental admission webpage which lists all faculty members taking students in the upcoming year.

Undergraduate students seeking a volunteer or independent research experience (PSYCH 510), please complete a Prospective Undergraduate RAs application on the EMBRACED Lab website.