Effect of Healing Meditation on stress and eating behavior in overweight and obese women: A randomized clinical trial

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctcp.2021.101468Get rights and content

Highlights

  • After two months of intervention, the meditation group showed a stress reduction of 42.6% higher.

  • The meditation group showed significant positive changes in the three parameters of eating behavior.

  • The meditation group showed a reduction of 34.3% of emotional eating.

  • The meditation group showed a reduction of 25.3% of external eating.

  • The meditation group showed an increase of 28.7% of restrained eating.

Abstract

Background

A randomized, parallel-controlled, blinded clinical trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of Healing Meditation on stress and eating behavior of women undergoing standard weight-loss treatment.

Materials and methods

An outpatient clinic in Brazil, 55 women with overweight and obesity were included and randomized: 27 for the Meditation Group, and 28 for the Control Group. Randomization was stratified by body mass index category and based on blocks of four. For eight weeks, in addition to the standard weight loss treatment, the Intervention Group underwent a Healing Meditation program, and the Control Group participated in a round table to observe compliance. Reduction in stress and changes in eating behavior were assessed at baseline, and in the 8th, and 16th week using the Perceived Stress Scale, the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire, and Binge Eating Scale.

Results

The sample mean age was 49 ± 11 years, 72.7% were obese, with a predominance of mixed (49.1%) and black (41.8%) ethnicity. After eight weeks, the Meditation Group showed a mean reduction in total stress of −17.4 (IC 95% −19.5 to −15.3 p < 0.001). In eating behavior, a mean reduction of −7.9 (p < 0.001) in external eating, of −11.4 (p < 0.0001) in emotional eating, and a rise of 9.6 (p < 0.0001) in restrained eating were found. Score levels remained stable between the 8th and 16th week. Binge eating had a mean variation of −22.2%(p = 0.011).

Conclusion

The addition of Healing Meditation to the standard weight-loss treatment may significantly reduce stress and produce positive changes in the eating behavior of overweight and obese women.

Trial registration

RBR-7564FD.

Introduction

The prevalence of obesity has risen significantly in the last 30 years. About 1.9 billion adults over the age of 18 years are overweight, among them 650 million are obese, the majority of them are women [1]. Stress levels have risen in the last three decades, mostly in women [2].

The rise in stress is related to higher food intake and inadequate diet maintenance [3]. Stress and negative mood are recognized as risk factors for obesity [4]. Several studies have shown that people under chronic stress may modify food choices and prefer sweets, fatty food, sugary drinks, and alcoholic beverages as a compensation for negative mood [[5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]]. Women seem to be more prone to this effect than men [11].

Chronic stress increases the blood circulating cortisol [12], and influences Appetite-Related hormones, which can increase the intake of palatable foods that reduce physiological responses to stress [12]. Higher cortisol levels are also associated with increased overall weight and visceral fat gain [13].

Standard obesity weight loss programs have a high rate of problems related to weight regain and nonadherence. Recent studies have evaluated meditation as a resource for regulating stress and psychological factors that interfere with eating behavior, with the aim of preventing obesity [[14], [15], [16], [17], [18]].

In a previous clinical trial, we demonstrated the benefit of Healing Meditation in anxiety control in patients undergoing the weight loss maintenance phase [19]. Furthermore, in another study [20], we showed a significant difference in weight loss and waist circumference reduction in overweight and obese women who performed Healing Meditation. This randomized clinical trial aimed to evaluate the effect of Healing Meditation on stress reduction and changes in the eating behavior of overweight and obese women undergoing a standard treatment for weight loss, at an outpatient clinic.

Section snippets

Design and randomization

This study was part of a randomized, controlled, parallel clinical trial conducted in a teaching-care health unit, and analyzed the psychological outcomes of the main study [20]. Randomization was stratified by BMI, categorized as overweight and obese, and based on blocks of four, with an allocation ratio of 1:1. Randomization and allocation were performed by a statistician, without being in any contact with the research center. The meditation group underwent an 8-week meditation program, in

Results

We had 121 patients interested in the study. As described in Fig. 1, 66 were excluded. We included and randomized 55 patients, 27 for the Meditation Group, and 28 for the Control Group. All women completed the follow-up.

There were no significant differences in sociodemographic and clinical characteristics between the groups. (Table 1). The mean age was 49 ± 11 years. The highest level of education obtained was a high school degree. Approximately 75% of women had a family income of up to two

Discussion

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of Healing Meditation on stress and eating behavior of overweight and obese women.

After two months of intervention, our study showed a reduction in stress of 42.6% higher in the Meditation Group. Moreover, we observed a higher reduction in emotional eating (34.3%) and external eating (25.3%) and higher increase in restrained eating (28.7%) in the Meditation Group. These results are relevant because restrained eating is the most challenging eating

Conclusion

The addition of Healing Meditation to the standard weight loss program may significantly reduce patient stress and produce significant positive changes in the management of eating behavior in overweight and obese women.

Credit author statement

Cynthia Sampaio: conducted the research, conducted the analysis and had the original idea; Guilherme Magnavita: Conducted the analysis and data curation; Ana Marice Ladeia: guided and supervised the research; All the authors worked in the preparation of this manuscript.

Declaration of competing interest

All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest with regard to the research.

Acknowledgments

We thank the Brazilian Center for Improvement of Superior Education Personnel (CAPES) its support by providing the first author with a scholarship. We also thank the staff of Complexo Comunitário Vida Plena for their support. The trial was funded by the authors. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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