Mindful Eating - Conscious Living: A study of acceptability, feasibility and efficacy among adult women in the UK

Ramsey-Wade, Christine; Halliwell, Emma; Williamson, Heidi; Atkinson, Melissa

Abstract

Disordered eating, or dis-ease around food and eating, is widespread. Many materials assisting individuals to apply mindfulness skills to their eating choices and behaviour are available online, from apps, to guided meditations, to asynchronous and synchronous courses. This programme of research will examine two such courses, derived from the work of American Zen master Jan Chozen Bays and the 8-week mindfulness programme Mindful Eating – Conscious Living™.
Building on a qualitative exploration of the acceptability of ME-CL with a sample of women from the UK, further pilot studies will use mixed methods to test the acceptability of two online mindful eating courses. The first mindful eating course is an independent learning 6-week programme with no teacher input, and the second programme is an online version of ME-CL, delivered to a small group by the researcher. Pre, post and follow up data will be collected from both studies, to also look for any signs of preliminary efficacy or harm.
Focus group data indicated that the ME-CL programme is acceptable to women in the UK, but teachers need to attend to cultural differences in their cohorts. This poster will present the initial results on the asynchronous programme, and an update on the project examining the synchronous programme.
While mindful eating programmes and materials proliferate online, most of them have not emerged from a programme of research or have been tested under research conditions. This project aims to close this gap between research and practice, to inform and improve current and future programmes.

• Presentation Conference Type: Poster
• Conference Name: Appearance Matters 9
• Start Date: Jul 13, 2021
• End Date: Jul 15, 2021
• Deposit Date: Oct 3, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 3, 2022
• Keywords: Mindful eating, Conscious living, Health & Wellbeing, Wellbeing
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10011014
• Related Public URLs: https://www.uwe.ac.uk/research/centres-and-groups/appearance/news-and-events/am-conference/appearance-matters-2021; ; https://www.uwe.ac.uk/research/centres-and-groups/appearance/research/vocational-training-charitable-trust-foundation