Body scan meditation reduces food cravings in individuals prone to emotional eating

A study of individuals prone to emotional eating showed that a 16-minute body scan meditation procedure reduces negative affect and food cravings. This effect did not depend on participants’ tendency to ruminate or their perceived body boundaries. The research was published in the journal Mindfulness.

Emotional eating is the habit of consuming food to cope with emotions rather than physical hunger. It often occurs in response to stress, sadness, boredom, or anxiety. During episodes of emotional eating, people typically choose comfort foods—those high in both fats and sugars—and often overeat them. Over time, this practice can lead to weight gain and even obesity.

Recently, scientists have begun investigating the effects mindfulness-based interventions may have on emotional eating. Mindfulness-based interventions are psychotherapeutic approaches that encourage individuals to focus on the present moment non-judgmentally, helping them manage stress, emotions, and behaviors more effectively. One such practice is body scan meditation, which involves slowly focusing attention on different parts of the body to promote relaxation and awareness of physical sensations.

Study author Huma Shireen and her colleagues sought to explore how a single body scan meditation session would affect negative emotions and food cravings in emotional eaters. They hypothesized that this treatment would reduce both. They further hypothesized that rumination would mediate the effects of this meditation practice and that the magnitude of these effects would depend on psychological factors such as mindfulness, equanimity (a state of mental calmness in the face of challenges), cognitive defusion (the ability to distance oneself from unhelpful thoughts), and interoceptive awareness (the ability to recognize, interpret, and respond to internal bodily sensations).

The study participants were 81 adults classified as emotional eaters based on the results of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Seventy-four percent of them were female. Participants’ average age was 27, and 45% identified as European or North American.

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The researchers randomly divided participants into two groups. One group underwent a 16-minute body scan meditation, while the other group listened to a recording of an equally long description of the human musculoskeletal system. Neither the participants nor the researcher working with them was informed of which condition was experimental and which was the control.

Before the intervention, participants completed an interview in which researchers asked them to recall a recent episode of emotional eating. This was intended to induce a negative emotional state in participants.

They also completed assessments of negative affect (using the Positive and Negative Affect Scale), food cravings intensity (using the Desire subscale of the Food Cravings Questionnaire – state version), mindfulness (using the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire), equanimity (using the Equanimity Scale), cognitive defusion (using the Drexel Defusion Scale), interoceptive awareness (using the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness-2), perceived body boundaries (using the Perceived Body Boundaries Scale), spatial frames of reference (using the Spatial Frame of Reference Continuum), and rumination (using the Brief State Rumination Inventory). Participants completed the assessments of negative affect and food cravings intensity again after the intervention.

Results showed that participants who completed the body scan meditation session experienced a greater reduction in negative affect and cravings from before to after the treatment compared to the group subjected to the listening task. This effect was independent of any of the psychological factors assessed in the study and was not mediated by any of them.

“This preliminary study suggests that the body scan meditation effectively reduces negative affect and food cravings in individuals with emotional eating. However, further research is needed to delve deeper into potential mediators and moderators influencing this effect,” the study authors concluded.

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the potential of mindfulness-based psychotherapeutic interventions. However, the method used to induce negative emotions in the study relied on recalled memories, making it unclear how strong and enduring these emotions were. Additionally, while the study demonstrated effects on negative emotions and food cravings, it does not provide evidence on the practice’s effects on emotional eating itself.

The paper, “A Body Scan Meditation Reduces Negative Affect and Food Cravings in Emotional Eaters: A Randomized Controlled Study of the Effects, Mediators, and Moderators”, was authored by Huma Shireen, Julia Milad, Yair Dor‑Ziderman, and Bärbel Knäuper.