Less Binge Eating and Loss of Control over Eating Are Associated with Greater Levels of Mindfulness: Identifying Patterns in Postmenopausal Women with Obesity.

Veronica Smith,Felipe Da Luz,Rebecca Harris,Amanda Sainsbury,Radhika Seimon

doi:10.3390/bs9040036

Veronica Smith, Felipe Da Luz + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/bs9040036

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Abstract

Obesity is a public health concern resulting in widespread personal, social, and economic burden. Many individuals with obesity report feeling unable to stop eating or to control their food intake (i.e., a loss of control over eating) despite their best efforts. Experiencing loss of control over eating predicts further eating pathology and is a key feature of binge eating. Mindfulness (i.e., awareness and acceptance of current thoughts, feelings, sensations, and surrounding events) has emerged as a potential strategy to treat such eating disorder behaviors, but it is not known whether there is merit in investigating this strategy to address binge eating in postmenopausal women with obesity. Thus, this study aimed to examine the relationships between binge eating and mindfulness in postmenopausal women with obesity seeking weight loss treatment. Participants (n = 101) were assessed with the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire, the Loss of Control over Eating Scale, the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, and the Langer Mindfulness Scale. Participants´ overall scores on both mindfulness scales were significantly and negatively correlated with binge eating frequency or the severity of loss of control over eating. Moreover, participants who reported fewer binge eating episodes were significantly more mindful than those who reported greater frequencies of binge eating episodes within the past 28 days. These findings suggest a merit in investigating the use of mindfulness-based therapies to treat binge eating in postmenopausal women with obesity.

Highlights

Obesity is a major public health concern associated with a range of health complications resulting in high social and economic burden [1]
Corroborating previous knowledge in undergraduate women [18], the current findings show that postmenopausal women with obesity who did not engage in binge eating behaviors, or who engaged in subclinical versus clinical levels of binge eating, displayed significantly higher levels of nonjudgement compared to those who did
These findings suggest that postmenopausal women with obesity who do not evaluate inner experiences negatively are less likely to engage in binge eating behaviors

Summary

Introduction

Obesity is a major public health concern associated with a range of health complications resulting in high social and economic burden [1]. In addition to binge eating, many individuals with obesity report feeling unable to stop eating or to control how much they are eating despite their best intentions [3]. This experience is clinically referred to as a loss of control over eating and is a key feature of binge eating in individuals with eating disorders [5]. Experiencing loss of control over eating predicts distress [6], impairment in psychosocial functioning [6], and global eating pathology [7] and is suggested to be a stronger predictor of psychological distress than the amount of food consumed [6,8]. Binge eating is categorized into two subgroups to assist in capturing the full spectrum of this pathology: (1) objective binge eating, that is, when loss of control over eating is coupled with consuming what is considered to be a large amount of food; and (2) subjective binge eating, that is, when loss of control over eating is experienced but the amount consumed is not large [8]

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