health psychology report · 8 original article background Preliminary findings suggest that mindfulness and selfcompassion training are associated with enhanced weight regulation. However, the associations between these traits and body mass index (BMI) are mixed.
participants and procedureIn a cross-sectional investigation, university students (n = 183) were asked to fill in questionnaires on mindfulness, self-compassion, mindful eating, and motivations to eat palatable foods.
resultsThe results suggest that mindfulness, self-compassion and mindful eating related negatively to motivations to eat palatable foods. Mindful eating displayed the most significant relationship. Further investigations showed that some subscales of self-compassion, mindfulness and mindful eating related to motivations to eat palatable foods and BMI more significantly. The ability to draw more and better conclusions by investigating the relationship of subscales to health behaviors and outcomes, especially with self-compassion, has been noted in previous rationales and theories. The notable relationships were (a) the enhancement subscale of the motivations to eat palatable foods, which appeared to relate positively to self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification, while (b) the coping subscale related to all subscales within the self-compassion scale.
conclusionsThe current findings support different lines of research that suggest that mindful eating, mindfulness and/or self-compassion support weight regulation. Mindfulness practices could potentially add the right motives to eat palatable foods (such as being motivated to eat when people are hungry), and potentially eat less of the foods that lead to weight dysregulation. The findings are discussed and suggested paths for further research are recommended. Based on a recent review exploring the relationship between self-compassion and obesity (see Mantzios & Egan, 2017), it was suggested that reporting findings from the subscales of those traits might offer further insights. Another review suggested investigating mindful eating more specifically, to identify more relevant and useful associations in obesity research (Mantzios & Wilson, 2015a). The overall aim of this research is to clarify the relationship of mindfulness, mindful eating and self-compassion to BMI through the use of a recent scale that assesses the motivations behind eating palatable foods. The relationship of mindfulness, mindful eating and self-compassion with motivations to eat palatable foods has not been explored, and might offer supplementary understanding of their association with BMI. Two methods of investigation have been used in this research. First, BMI is explored with the overall scores of mindfulness, mindful eating, and self-compassion, while considering the association with motivations to eat palatable foods. Second, BMI is explored in relation to the subscales of the mindfulness, mindful eating, self-compassion and motivations to eat palatable foods scales.
Mindfulness, eating, and oBesityThe practice...