A Feasibility Study of Taste & See: A Church Based Programme to Develop a Healthy Relationship with Food

Abstract

Abstract:Holistic approaches which include a religious element are a promising intervention within obesity, but have not been explored in the UK. Objective: To conduct a feasibility study of a three-month, Christian-based intuitive-eating programme in a church. Methods: A total of 18 adults participated. Ethical approval was granted by Coventry University Ethics Committee. Participant and facilitator experience was investigated qualitatively. Results showed participants accepted the programme and engaged well with its spiritual component. Lay facilitators managed to adequately run the programme, although some difficulties identified training needs. Clinical, psychological and spiritual measures were analysed using intention to treat; baseline observation carried forward to input missing data. Mental well-being, anxiety, depression, quality of life, pain/discomfort uncontrolled-eating, emotional-eating, cognitive-restrained-eating, intuitive-eating and Body Mass Index (BMI) improved significantly post-intervention. There were improvements in spiritual well-being, and reductions in energy, fat and saturated fat intake. Between the end of the intervention and a six-month follow-up, there were no statistically significant changes. However, the extent that weight and BMI returned to baseline levels meant that the reduction from baseline was no longer significant or clinically important. Mean changes in other variables, including uncontrolled eating, emotional eating, mental well-being and anxiety remained statistically improved from baseline. At six-month follow-up, improvements in intuitive eating were fully sustained at this time point and total fat, saturated fat and sugar intake had reduced further even though these values did not reach statistical significance. Conclusion: It is feasible to recruit to, deliver and evaluate Taste & See in a UK church, with lay volunteers. Clinical outcomes were positive, but a larger, controlled study is needed.

Protocol for a Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial to Compare the “Taste & See” Programme—A Church-Based Programme to Develop a Healthy Relationship with Food—With a Wait-List Control

“…The design of the "Taste & See" programme and the protocol for testing the feasibility of this was previously reported in Religions (Lycett et al 2016). The results of the feasibility study, also previously reported in Religions, showed this programme could be run successfully by church volunteers and improvements in participants' mental well-being, emotional eating and quality-of-life were observed during and for six months after the programme (Patel et al 2017a). An embedded qualitative study of participant experience on this programme showed participants journeyed from shame and guilt to acceptance and freedom (Patel et al 2017b).…”

Special Issue “International Conference of Spirituality in Healthcare. Nurturing the Spirit”—Trinity College Dublin 2016

“…The pastoral care workers that provided spiritual-based dietary advice for young people in Patel et al study highlighted these ethical concerns (Patel et al 2017). These trainers felt out of their depth dealing with some of the existential and emotional issues that could arise as a request of addressing this particular topic (Patel et al 2017). Keenan (2017) thus calls for attention to spiritual safety, spiritual vulnerability, and spiritual risk in healthcare.…”

“…Furthermore, there needs to be caution when attempting to address spiritual needs in healthcare, as (Keenan 2017) points out as some people may not wish to confront this issue, perhaps due to a lack of confidence. The pastoral care workers that provided spiritual-based dietary advice for young people in Patel et al study highlighted these ethical concerns (Patel et al 2017). These trainers felt out of their depth dealing with some of the existential and emotional issues that could arise as a request of addressing this particular topic (Patel et al 2017).…”

“…Transcendence in this sense refers to the concept of a higher or greater purpose in life; a sense of what it is important to do and what constitutes a good or a right way to live. By providing spiritual care, healthcare workers can support an individual's quest for meaning making during particular life events, such as undergoing day surgery or to aid people to improve their self-worth, find support from their faith perhaps assisting them to eat better and lose weight (Patel et al 2017).…”

“…However, what is novel is that spirituality is now receiving unprecedented attention within international healthcare research, evidenced for example by Egan et al (Egan et al 2011) first national study of nurses views on spirituality within healthcare in New Zealand. Furthermore, while spirituality is traditionally associated with end of life care (Romeiro et al 2017;Velosa et al 2017) these papers reflect the widening and diverse application of spirituality in areas such as intellectual disability, day surgery, infertility and dietetics (Romeiro et al 2017;Keenan and MacDermott 2016;Pike 2017;Patel et al 2017). …”