Mindful Eating Reduces Impulsive Food Choice

Impulsive food choice is one major causes of obesity. Impulsive food choice happens when individuals prefer a smaller immediate reward (e.g. the good feeling arising from eating a piece of chocolate cake) than a larger delayed reward (e.g. the health benefits from eating a healthy salad). Numerous studies have tried to restrict impulsiveness in food choice. Recent findings that this can be achieved through mindful eating.

Mindfulness focuses on the idea of “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4). The adapted concept of mindfulness on food domain, is termed mindful eating and is defined as, “a nonjudgmental awareness of physical and emotional sensations associated with eating” (Framson et al., 2009, p. 1439). Mindful eating involves paying attention to momentary observations of private events, thought, taste, visual stimuli, taste, associated with the eating experience. It provides individuals with the opportunity to experience their external and internal environment while slowing down the pace of food consumption, which in turn can increase the chances of satiety.

A recent study showed that mindful eating can lead to less impulsive eating. The study tested 384 participants who had to participate in a task measure impulsive choice (preference of smaller immediate rewards over larger delayed ones). Before the task a part of participants watched a video of mindful eating video while another part watched an irrelevant to eating video or nothing. The results showed that participants who watched the mindful eating training made less impulsive choices that participants watch the food neutral video or nothing. According to the findings of the study mindful eating can be a promising tool in reducing impulsive food choice.

Sources

Framson, C., Kristal, A. R., Schenk, J. M., Littman, A. J., Zeliadt, S., & Benitez, D. (2009). Development and validation of the mindful eating questionnaire. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 109, 1439–1444.

Hendrickson, K. L., & Rasmussen, E. B. (2017). Mindful eating reduces impulsive food choice in adolescents and adults. Health Psychology, 36(3), 226–235.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation in everyday life. New York, NY: Hyperion.