Review: Mindfulness Meditation and Emotional Eating

The Article reviews the paper "Mindfulness meditation as an intervention for binge eating, emotional eating, and weight loss: A systematic review" published in the Journal "Eating Behaviours" in 2014 by Katterman et al.

The paper itself takes a meta-study approach and examines 14 different studies where Mindfulness Meditation has been used as the primary method to influence emotional eating, binge eating as well as weight.

One of the reasons why the authors may have looked at mindfulness meditation as the primary, rather than the only intervention, is probably because in real-life clinical settings, it is difficult to find practitioners using only one method alone. At the very least interventions are accompanied by some form of counseling or psychoeducation. It must be kept in mind that traditionally, it would be common to find practitioners using such mind-body approaches adjunct to another mainstream approach such as CBT.

The authors looked at emotional eating, binge eating, and weightloss distinctly. At first glance, it may seem all three are related, which they can at times, but is not always the case. Binge Eating is essentially disordered eating where when eats large amounts of good and does so regularly. Such episodes are usually accompanied by the feeling of not being control and regret later on. Emotional eating is when one eats primary due to an emotional trigger such as stress or anger. Weight loss can be related to both of these.

In the Meta-Study, the authors interestingly found that Mindfulness Meditation was helpful in reducing binge eating as well as emotional eating, however, the impact on weight loss itself was not clear. Given that weight loss is usually the concern of patients that come looking for help, one speculate as to why.

It must be understood that by and far the biggest determinant of weight is, of course, one's caloric intake in relation to their body and activity. Being in caloric maintenance means one will remain the same weight, being in a deficit or surplus would mean weight loss or gain. Therefore it makes sense that clients need to know or at least keep check of what they are eating of how well intervention has been. Even though emotional eating and binge eating can be controlled through mindfulness meditation, giving a sense of control, overall meal sizes, portions or unhealthy eating habits can increase for reasons pertaining to anything from unresolved emotions to work situations and active social life.

Therefore, at least according to this meta-study, even though mindfulness meditation shows great promise for Binge and Emotional Eating, I suggest it is important for clients to know what causes weight fluctuations at the most fundamental level (caloric intake) and therefore tracking and mindful about what they eat is necessary if the end goal is to have a healthy weight. This can be extended to more elaborate nutritional information and maybe even exercise regiment, which may require further support.

Umair Usman is a Rapid Transformational Therapy Practitioner, a businessperson, and a blogger. You can know more about him at https://buff.ly/2zmc9rj . To book a free consultancy session, please fill the form https://tinyurl.com/y6n2vv8w

Reference: Katterman SN, Kleinman BM, Hood MM, Nackers LM, Corsica JA. Mindfulness meditation as an intervention for binge eating, emotional eating, and weight loss: a systematic review. Eating Behaviors 2014; 15(2): 197-204.