Cravings and dietary relapses
Below is a summary of a research paper by Sala et al, 2021 into some observations about cravings and dietary lapse.
In this study, it appears that by examining the concepts of ‘mindful awareness’, ‘willingness’ and ‘values’ – they are associated with less cravings and dietary relapse.
126 participants; over 80% female with a BMI of at least 27 of above seeking weight loss treatment.
- Mindful awareness
Their findings show that people who were more mindful i.e. had greater awareness of their emotional state and thoughts were less likely to have cravings and / or experience a dietary relapse if they were on a weight loss programme.
“Higher levels of mindful awareness may enable individuals to “step back” and observe momentary craving as it arises and then passes, and/or flexibly redirect attention to present-moment activities, rather than automatically getting caught up in cravings.” However, the size of the effects of this were small.
- Willingness
Willingess is defined by the authors as willingness to tolerate short-term discomfort. “Higher willingness involves accepting any internal experiences that will inevitably arise during weight control efforts, which may help individuals to not lapse regardless of what their internal experiences may be pulling them to do.” “That is, higher willingness may help individuals tolerate hunger, negative emotions, and loss of pleasure that may result from not eating highly caloric foods”.
- Values clarity
“Higher values clarity in the moment may involve bringing to mind meaningful reasons to engage in weight control behaviors. However, surprisingly, higher within-person values clarity prospectively predicted higher craving”. Your values are things which you deem important to you, and if you are clear-headed about them and they are front of mind, then you may be more aligned to engage and maintain certain healthier behaviours. This finding is an area for further inquiry.
The authors noted there was a high level of in-person variation, meaning there were differences due to differences in personality, desire, motivation and in all likelihood support and recency. The participants in the study went through a period of counselling prior to being assigned to groups. There may have been biases in the responses they collected due to their methodology. A note of caution should be applied as participants were highly motivated, female and white and treatment seeking, and moreover, it’s just one study – one of the first of its kind, however it does make you think.
- End note
They end on a note which I found interesting, that is mindfulness acceptance behaviour therapy (MBATs) has been shown effective in weight loss maintenance: “Overall, these findings suggest that intervening on momentary mindful awareness, willingness, and values clarity could be a useful strategy for reducing craving and dietary lapses among individuals with obesity or overweight. Indeed, MABTs have been established as efficacious interventions for obesity, and are capable of producing weight loss of approximately 12–14% of initial body weight after a one-year intervention. Furthermore, a recent meta-analysis suggests that MABTs may be particularly effective for weight loss maintenance”.
So what this end note is saying, is this therapeutic approach and support was effective in individuals keeping their weight off after a long-term weight loss intervention.
Other related articles you may wish to read:
Waist-to-height ratio – a simpler tool to assessing obesity risk
What is my BMI? What does BMI mean?
To read the full paper you can download it here:
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