Social support could be a powerful weight-loss treatment moderator or mediator but is rarely assessed. We assessed the psychometric properties, initial levels, and predictive validity of a measure of perceived social support and sabotage from friends and family for healthy eating and physical activity (eight subscales). Overweight/obese women randomized to one of two 6-month, group-based behavioral weight-loss programs (N=267; mean BMI 32.1±3.5; 66.3% White) completed subscales at baseline, and weight loss was assessed at 6 months. Internal consistency, discriminant validity, and content validity were excellent for support subscales and adequate for sabotage subscales; qualitative responses revealed novel deliberate instances not reflected in current sabotage items. Most women (>75%) “never” or “rarely” experienced support from friends or family. Using non-parametric classification methods, we identified two subscales—support from friends for healthy eating and support from family for physical activity—that predicted three clinically meaningful subgroups who ranged in likelihood of losing ≥5% of initial weight at 6 months. Women who “never” experienced family support were least likely to lose weight (45.7% lost weight) whereas women who experienced both frequent friend and family support were more likely to lose weight (71.6% lost weight). Paradoxically, women who “never” experienced friend support were most likely to lose weight (80.0% lost weight), perhaps because the group-based programs provided support lacking from friendships. Psychometrics for support subscales were excellent; initial support was rare; and the differential roles of friend versus family support could inform future targeted weight-loss interventions to subgroups at risk.

This study investigated whether relative changes in cognitive, emotion, temporal, and self-reference word frequencies in repeated narratives predicted improvements in mindfulness skills (i.e., nonjudgmental acceptance of present-moment experiences, observing and describing present stimuli, and acting with awareness) subsequent to narrative self-disclosure. Participants wrote repeated narratives of traumatic or daily events over 3 days. Mindfulness was assessed at baseline and 4 to 8 weeks posttask. Results indicated that relative increases in cognitive processing words (among traumatic events participants and women in both conditions) and present tense words (among all participants) significantly predicted increases in nonjudgmental acceptance, describing, or overall mindfulness. Increases in present tense words appeared to partially mediate the higher mindfulness outcomes of participants writing about daily events when compared with those writing about trauma. The findings suggest that linguistic changes in self-disclosure narratives are associated with improvements in specific mindfulness skills.

This randomized study examined whether narrative emotional disclosure improves mindfulness, experiential avoidance, and mental health, and how baseline levels of and changes in mindfulness and experiential avoidance relate to mental health. Participants (N = 233) wrote repeated traumatic (experimental condition) or unemotional daily events narratives (control condition). Regression analyses showed neither condition nor gender effects on mental health or experiential avoidance at a 1-month follow-up, although the control condition significantly increased in one component of mindfulness. Decreased experiential avoidance (across conditions) and increased mindfulness (in the experimental condition) significantly predicted improved mental health. Narrative disclosure thus did not improve outcomes measured here. However, increasing mindfulness when writing narratives with traumatic content, and decreasing experiential avoidance regardless of writing content, was associated with improved mental health.

This prospective study tested whether (a) baseline outcome expectations regarding the benefits of a weight-loss diet, (b) 6-month outcome realizations regarding perceived benefits actually experienced, and/or (c) the interaction between them predicted 6–12 month weight regain among overweight/obese women randomized to one of four popular weight-loss diets (N=311). Positive 6-month realizations regarding improvements in physical shape and appearance predicted less 6–12 month weight regain among Atkins diet participants only (n=70), controlling for baseline expectations, the expectations-realization interaction, and initial weight loss. Atkins participants displayed three distinct patterns of regain based on levels of 6-month realizations and initial weight loss. Experimental research should investigate whether improving realizations leads to reduced weight regain in response to this popular diet.

No abstract