How Does Mindful Eating Work?

Mindfulness – taking the time to just pay attention, basically – is all the rage, and rightly so. It's even touted as a weapon in the fight against prostate and breast cancers. Increasingly, it is being discussed as a tool for controlling our weight.

“Mindful eating,” as it is known, is gaining in popularity due, we suspect, to its lack of the strict rules and rigid guidelines of most other approaches to dieting. It eschews cutting back on certain foods and counting calories. Instead, it focuses on recognizing healthy and unhealthy food choices, being aware of appetite triggers, and being ever cognizant of how, when and what you are eating.

Sounds very “zen” and all, but does it work?

A new study from North Carolina State University indicates that it does, albeit with very modest results. The scientists looked at the effectiveness of an online program developed by researchers at the UNC called “Eat Smart, Move More, Weigh Less.”

“Mindfulness is paying attention to your surroundings, being in the present moment,” said Dr. Carolyn Dunn, one of the study's authors. “Mindful eating is eating with purpose, eating on purpose, eating with awareness, eating without distraction, when eating only eating, not watching television or playing computer games or having any other distractions, not eating at our desks.

The study enrolled 80 participants in a randomized controlled trial to gauge the effectiveness of the 15 week weight management-by-mindfulness program. Forty two adults adopted the system immediately and 38 were assigned to a control group who were waiting to join it.

“We instruct people to eat the foods that they love, and not give them up, but to eat them in a mindful way,” Dunn said.

“For example, if one of us was going to eat a food that has very high calories, we would tell them to eat one or two bites, but to eat those one or two bites with awareness, so they are getting the most pleasure out of those one to two bites.

Study participants were not offered any type of diet guidelines or asked to count calories. They were given weekly talks on a different aspect of food and nutrition, and were encouraged to walk and increase their physical activity levels.

The participants in the program lost 4.2 pounds versus 0.7 pounds for those in the control group. When checked six months later, three-quarters of the mindfulness group either maintained their weight loss or improved upon it.

“Results suggest that there is a beneficial association between mindful eating and weight loss. The current study contributes to the mindfulness literature as there are very few studies that employed rigorous methodology to examine the effectiveness of an intervention on mindful eating,” the authors wrote.

The research was presented at the 2017 European Congress on Obesity.