Women's Experiences with a Mindful Eating Program for Binge and Emotional Eating: A Qualitative Investigation into the Process of Change

Abstract

Objectives: Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been shown to reduce engagement in disordered eating behaviors, although how these interventions engender change remains unclear. The objective of this exploratory qualitative study was to describe the experiences and perceived attitudinal and behavioral changes of women participating in a mindful eating program. Design: Focus group discussions were held with women participating in a community-based mindful eating program for binge and emotional eating. A semistructured interview guide was used to explore participants' conceptualizations of mindfulness-based attitudinal and behavior change, as related to food, eating, and body image. The focus group discussions were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis to identify salient concepts. Settings/Location: Focus group discussions were held at the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) (United States). Participants: A sample of nine women who were enrolled in the mindful eating program at UMMS for problems with self-reported binge and/or emotional eating participated in this study. Results: Four themes were constructed that described a process of mindfulness-based behavior change, including (1) Learning Through Self-Awareness, (2) Self-Empowerment, (3) Mindful Choice-Making, and (4) Resilient Self-Care. An overarching description of the participants' perceived attitudinal and behavior changes was developed: ''unforced freedom of choice, emerging from embodied awareness.'' Conclusions: These findings suggest that MBIs reduce may disordered eating behaviors through empowering women to make positive choices about food, eating, and coping, without focusing on weight control. Future research is needed to examine whether these findings replicate in larger and more diverse samples, and how they can be used to optimize and implement eating-specific MBIs in community-based settings.

Self-Regulation Without Force: Can Awareness Leverage Reward to Drive Behavior Change?

“…For example, individuals may eat small portions of ice cream while paying close attention to know when they are satisfied or eat fruit instead of calorie-dense foods. This awareness-based development of choice has been described as an “unforced freedom of choice, emerging from embodied awareness” in qualitative analyses of statements by participants in a mindful-eating intervention as those individuals moved from Path A (and B) to Path C (Beccia, Ruf, Druker, Ludwig, & Brewer, 2020).…”

“…One might predict that this mode of self-regulation gives rise to modulated rather than extreme behavior (e.g., eating in moderation rather than adhering to strict diets) because this mode of self-regulation involves being aware of and flexibly responding to the demands and needs of each moment rather than responding to learned rules. This gives rise to a subjective feeling of reward that results from increased freedom of choice (Beccia et al, 2020).…”

Negative Mood and Food Craving Strength Among Women with Overweight: Implications for Targeting Mechanisms Using a Mindful Eating Intervention

“…As such, individuals disambiguate and "relearn" which specific body and mindstates are indicative of homeostatic vs. hedonic (i.e., eating for pleasure) hunger. By teaching skills to adaptively identify and cope with emotional difficulties, this intervention assists participants with frequent food cravings by helping them to identify automatic, learned craving tendencies when experiencing a negative mood-and to respond appropriately (eating when signaled by homeostatic hunger, and working with cravings and emotions when signaled by hedonic cues; Beccia et al, 2020). Future intervention refinement efforts might focus on enhancing these lessons to maximally target the mood-cravings link in an adequately powered RCT design.…”

“…Future intervention refinement efforts might focus on enhancing these lessons to maximally target the mood-cravings link in an adequately powered RCT design. Qualitative data that examines the utility of these modules in reducing the mood-eating link may contribute to future refinement (e.g., Beccia et al, 2020). For instance, to what extent did participants find modules on self-monitoring and existing with cravings helpful in coping adaptively with cravings?…”

Atención plena y conciencia corporal en mujeres con un trastorno de la conducta alimentaria

“…No obstante, y a pesar de estas limitaciones, los resultados de nuestro trabajo son prometedores respecto a la idoneidad de incluir en el tratamiento de los TCA intervenciones centradas en el mindful eating (Murray, 2019;Tronieri et al, 2020), con la finalidad de mejorar en estas pacientes su relación con la comida y consigo mismas. Debido a que el avance en el conocimiento de los TCA nos devuelve, una y otra vez, su complejidad (Hernangómez, 2020), los resultados de este trabajo implican la necesidad de seguir investigando sobre la pertinencia de incluir el mindful eating como herramienta en el tratamiento de los TCA (Álvarez et al, 2021), ya que los resultados obtenidos nos muestran cómo un aumento de la conciencia en la experiencia de la alimentación se correlaciona de forma negativa con los estilos de ingesta y éstos, a su vez, están relacionados con la aparición de TCA (Beccia et al, 2020…”