ArticleEating and weight disorders : EWD2020
Mindfulness-based emotional eating awareness training: taking the emotional out of eating.
Article in Eating and weight disorders : EWD, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 91 citations in OpenAlex.
- How Effective Are Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Reducing Stress and Weight? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Emotional Eating and Weight Status in Adolescents: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Pooled it
- Mindfulness-based eating awareness training (MB-EAT) decreases emotional eating behavior among Hong Kong university students: a randomized controlled trial.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2026Trial
- An Interventional Study Exploring the Effects of Nutritional Psychoeducation on Emotional Eating After 3 Months.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Trial
- Easing the burden: a pilot study on the impact of mindfulness on the mental health of Brazilian medical students.BMC medical education · 2025Trial
- Eating Motives and Other Factors Predicting Emotional Overeating during COVID-19 in a Sample of Polish Adults.Nutrients · 2021Trial
- Effects of Multisensory Environmental Cues on Food Craving, Healthy Food Preference, and Stress-Related Recovery.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Mindful Eating, Disordered Eating, and Exercise Addiction: A Bayesian Gaussian Network Analysis.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Impact of DBT-based counselling program on emotional eating and emotional regulation among overweight women.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Developing a Mindfulness Program for Families in a Pediatric Weight Management Clinic.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Acute response and neurophysiological mechanisms of mindfulness meditation in emotional eating.Journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
- Article
- A combined diving and mindfulness program as a catalyst for behavioural change in adults with obesity: a qualitative study.International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2025Article
- Emotional Eating and Obesity: An Update and New Insights.Current obesity reports · 2025Review
- Personality, eating behaviour, and body weight: results from the population study of women in Gothenburg 2016/17.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2025Article
- Chronotype Predicts Body Mass Index via Emotion Regulation Strategy Use and Emotional Eating.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
- Emotional Eating and Its Relationship with Symptoms of Anxiety, Depression, and Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Multicenter Study in College Students.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Trait mindfulness is protective for development of psychological distress in women with early breast cancer.Health psychology and behavioral medicine · 2025Article
- Development and Evaluation of the "Eating More Consciously" Module of a Lifestyle Intervention Program to Prevent Medication-Induced Weight Gain in Psychiatric Patients: A One-Arm Pilot Study.Alpha psychiatry · 2024Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeEmotional eating is important to study and address because it predicts poor outcome in weight loss interventions. Interventions have only touched the surface in terms of addressing emotional eating. Mindfulness approaches can address emotional eating by modification of emotion regulation and appetitive traits. The current study involved development of an emotional eating-specific mindfulness intervention and assessment of its effect on appetitive traits associated with emotional eating.
methodsParticipants (n = 14; age M = 29 years; 90% female) completed baseline and end-of-intervention self-report measures of emotional eating, food-cue reactivity, mindfulness, intuitive eating, emotional impulse regulation, stress, and a behavioural measure of inhibitory control. During the 6-week intervention, mindfulness meditation skills were taught weekly embedded in a psycho-educational curriculum about emotional eating.
resultsPaired t tests, controlled for type 1 error, revealed significant improvements in food-cue reactivity, intuitive eating, emotional impulse regulation, inhibitory control and stress (ps < 0.05; d: 0.58-1.54). Changes in emotional eating approached significance (p = 0.075, d = 0.66).
conclusionThe intervention purposefully did not focus on weight loss and recruited participants who had self-declared difficulties with emotional eating. The positive outcomes suggest that intervening with mindfulness training before weight loss is attempted has the potential to change psychological factors that underpin overeating and undermine weight loss efforts. The study provides proof of principle as a basis to design a randomized control trial to assess rigorously the effectiveness of the intervention as a precursor to a weight loss intervention. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level IV, uncontrolled trial.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.