Quietly, across the nation, a new eating philosophy is catching the interest of physicians, psychologists and health professionals. The National Institutes of Health in 2005 dedicated $1.8 million over four years to mindful eating studies at three universities around the country. Although it is its own sub-field, the principles of mindful eating can work in concert with several other healthy diet and weight loss regimens.

The program originated by Indiana State University research psychologist Jean Kristeller applies the principles of mindful meditation to eating, with the goal of developing a more positive relationship with food, often leading to sustainable weight management and a reduction in binge eating. Several universities and health systems around the country now offer a nine-week Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training (MB-EAT) program.

“They’ve had some really promising initial results,” said Jan Dean, a psychologist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences who specializes in eating disorders, including obesity. Dean has not yet gone through the training, but she has read much about it and is talking with several of its founders about starting such a program in central Arkansas.

Dean is already using some of the principles in her work, encouraging clients to pay attention to their eating, not just to the calories. “People come back really excited to start noticing their habits, noticing food,” she said. “They say they love to eat, but then they eat really fast and are not even tasting it. They gobble.”

Dean said there’s definitely an outside component to managing eating, but inside changes to patients’ relationships with food cannot be ignored. Over-emphasizing “good foods” versus “bad foods” reinforces negative feelings about eating, she said, and can perpetuate a person’s already rampant self-criticism when they slip.

In a University of Leeds study, researcher Dr. Daryl O’Conner said stress is one of the biggest culprits contributing to Americans’ present epidemic of weight gain and obesity. “Stress causes people to opt for unhealthy high-fat and high-sugar snacks in preference to healthier food choices. Also, people under stress eat less than usual in their main meals, including their vegetable intake, but shift their preference to high-fat/high-sugar snacks instead,” he said.

“I really like to work with people to develop a healthy relationship with food, where it doesn’t become such the big focus that the dieting mentality brings to it,” Dean explained. “People think, ‘If I can only lose X amount of weight, then I’ll be happy, then I can travel, then I can whatever.’ I encourage people to identify the things they really want to do, get more involved in their life, and then let’s keep some focus over here on the food as well.”

She said mindful eating is not the miracle quick fix people want. “We have to get them to understand there really isn’t any quick fix,” she said. “Mindful eating can be hard to achieve, but I also think it gives them sort of a renewed sense of hope if they’re willing to put those practices into effect.”



January 2008

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