Mindful eating: Differences of generations and relationship of mindful eating with BMI

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find the generational differences and similarities in mindful eating. For this cross-sectional study, Mindful Eating Questionnaire (MEQ) was chosen and the Turkish version of the questionnaire was used. Sub-scales of this version were Eating without Thinking, Emotional Eating, Eating Control, Awareness, Eating Discipline, Conscious Nutrition, and Interference. The questionnaire was published on the internet for one week in January 2019.143 males and 455 females aged 15–72 years had joined the survey. In this intergenerational study, there were 43 people from the baby boomers generation, 137 people from X generation, 383 people from Y generation, and 35 people from Z generation. Minimum BMI was 15.79 and maximum was 46.88 for the whole group. BMI values were inversely associated with MEQ score as expected. From this result, it can be said that mindful eating can play an important role in long-term weight maintenance. The mean value of Total Mindful Eating score appeared close to the upper limit in the specified range. This means the internet user participants of the study were mindful eaters. Baby boomers had higher scores for nearly each sub-scales than other generations. The competitive, individualist generation X had had significantly higher scores for Emotional Eating and conscious eating sub-scales than the other generations. The free spirit generation Y had no significant scores in this study. For the lonely, deeply emotional generation Z, mindfulness is not important.