Although I practice mindfulness meditation and am a believer in the benefits of mindful eating, it is important to note the results of a study published in 2015.
Mindfulness is rapidly becoming a recommended way of retraining eating behaviors for those who attend diabetes education programs. Many people who practice mindfulness meditation, and an increasing number of health professionals, are coming to believe that mindful eating can make a difference in helping individuals with diabetes change their eating behaviors. It is not coincidental that, within a mindful approach, the person’s choices often are to eat less, savor eating more, and select foods consistent with desirable health benefits. The person eating chooses what and how much to consume. The individual focuses on appreciating the experience of food and is not concerned with restricting intake. It is based on an individual’s experience of the moment. Mindfulness is a process-oriented, rather than an outcome-driven, behavior. Their behavior change will be subject to daily stress and outside pressures and therefore difficult to sustain. People may know their outcomes are going to depend on their consumption and expenditure of calories and understand that this has to do with their behavior, but it is rare for individuals to sustain behavior change without seeing results on their outcomes.
All diets have the potential of success or failure based on weight outcomes. These outcomes are most likely weight loss or, in the case of diabetes, improved blood glucose values and ultimately improved A1C. The intention is to help individuals savor the moment and the food and encourage their full presence for the eating experience.ĭiets tend to focus on rules of eating (e.g., what to eat, how much to eat, and what not to eat), with the intended measurement of specific outcomes. The purpose of mindful eating is not to lose weight, although it is highly likely that those who adopt this style of eating will lose weight. It has little to do with calories, carbohydrates, fat, or protein. Mindful eating (i.e., paying attention to our food, on purpose, moment by moment, without judgment) is an approach to food that focuses on individuals’ sensual awareness of the food and their experience of the food. Although we pay significant attention to studying diets to determine which is the most effective, we still come up with the same answer: they are all effective in the short term, and none is effective in the long term. It has been recognized for quite some time that, without behavior change, a diet is useless. It also has become the focus of an approach to eating that fulfills the criteria necessary in changing one’s overall approach to eating. The practice of mindfulness has helped thousands of people to live more intentionally and develop the skills necessary to manage chronic pain, disease, depression, sleeping problems, and anxiety. He wrote the book Full Catastrophe Living in 1990 to offer guidance on living mindfully based on his experiences with this program since 1979 ( 1). Kabat-Zinn was the original developer and leader of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The term “mindfulness” was defined by Jon Kabat-Zinn as “paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” ( 1). Likewise, “mindful eating” encourages us to gain awareness of our eating experiences. It has become a method of encouraging someone to take good care of him- or herself. This term has become popular because it urges conscious awareness of whatever the focus might be. Mindfulness is a term that has become embedded in our everyday language, but its meaning is more profound than how we use it in our driven, multitasking, social structure.
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