Background & objectives: Patients with bulimia nervosa may have impaired mental image of their body and fear of weight gain. The aim of current research is study the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on improving body image of female students with bulimia nervosa.

  Methods: The design of current study is as quasi-experiment research with pre-test and post-test with control group . Statistical population consists all 12-16 years old female students with bulimia nervosa of Ardabil city in the 2013-13 academic years. In order to select the sample, at first 400 students were selected by multi stage cluster sampling method. Then between the students with bulimia nervosa, 40 subjects were selected randomly and were put in two experimental and control groups. The experimental group participated in 8 sessions of acceptance and commitment based training. Thecontrol group received no intervention. The gathered data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA).

  Results: The results show that acceptance and commitment therapy improved body image and reduced the symptoms of bulimia nervosa subjects of experimental group in comparison with the control group in the post-test (P<0.001).

Conclusions: The results indicated that acceptance and commitment therapy by therapeutic strategies, improved body image of female students with bulimia nervosa. Thus, interventions based on this approach in schools for students lead to decreasing the psychological problems