Enjoying food without caloric cost: The impact of brief mindfulness on laboratory eating outcomes

Mindfulness Interventions

“…Despite these established links, very little rigorous empirical work has tested whether mindfulness interventions impact health behaviors. There's some initial RCT evidence that mindfulness interventions can reduce smoking among heavy smokers (Brewer et al 2011), alter dietary behaviors such as eating less sweets (Arch et al 2016, Mason et al 2015, and may improve self-reported and polysomnographic markers of sleep, although the sleep outcomes evidence is mixed (Black et al 2015, Britton et al 2010Garland et al 2014b).…”

Comparison of Mindful and Slow Eating Strategies on Acute Energy Intake

“…Participants in the mindfulness condition in the Arch et al study consumed fewer calories from sweet foods, salty foods, and from saturated fat than participants in the distraction and no-instruction control conditions. Those subjects in the mindfulness condition also did not compensate for the decrease in energy intake from "junk" foods by consuming more calories from healthier options like unsalted almonds and carrot sticks (108). Results from these more recent studies involving brief mindfulness interventions suggest that mindfulness training may result in decreased energy intake of snack foods.…”

“…Results from this study show that participants in the mindfulness training group had significantly lower stress perceptions than those in the control group (50 and mindful eating tips such as chewing food thoroughly before swallowing, savoring the aroma and taste of food, and creating a pleasurable experience around food and eating which may include eating in a designated eating spot with minimal distractions (39,47). Within the realm of mindful eating meditations, there are those that are focused on breathing (49,104,105), awareness of the senses associated with eating in order to maximize enjoyment (45,47,51,108), relaxation (45), attention to internal hunger cues such as hunger and satiety (45,48,49,51,56,105), and identification of emotional and external eating triggers (49,56). The use of these strategies alone or in combination has been employed in many interventions investigating the effect of mindfulness-based strategies on eating behaviors.…”

“…The similarity of results between the current study and the Cavanagh study suggest that brief mindfulness exercises may not be effective at producing significant decreases in energy intake of large portion sizes or at meal settings. However, Arch et al showed that a brief mindfulness intervention was able to impact energy intake in the presence of smaller, snack sized portions (108). Because increased portion sizes are well known to increase energy intake (47,55), it is possible that the external cues resulting from increased portion sizes have a greater impact on energy intake than internal cues highlighted through mindfulness practice and thus, mindfulnessbased intervention may not be significant enough to overcome a portion size effect.…”

Reducing Sugar Use in Coffee While Maintaining Enjoyment: A Randomized Controlled Trial

“…These interventions have been successfully used to increase enjoyment of a typically avoided food (i.e., prunes; Hong et al, 2014), a food that evokes mixed feelings (i.e., raisins; Arch et al, 2016) and a liked food (chocolate; Arch et al, 2016). Our aim was not to train awareness of hunger and fullness, so we did not include those aspects of the training.…”