Abstract
Objectives
Eating disorders are debilitating mental illnesses characterized by disturbances in eating behaviors and weight regulation. Risk factors associated with disordered eating behaviors include negative affect and body dissatisfaction. Whereas mindfulness-based interventions have been shown to be effective in treating selected eating disorders, few studies have investigated the effects of brief mindfulness training on core features of eating disorders. Using a laboratory experimental design, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of a brief mindfulness induction on negative mood, implicit and explicit body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating urges in a sample of female college students with elevated eating disorder symptoms.
Methods
Eighty-one students who met criteria for full or subthreshold diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge eating disorder were recruited from a large Singaporean university and randomly assigned to either a brief mindful breathing exercise or a resting control condition, following a negative mood induction procedure.
Results
Analyses showed that the mindfulness induction resulted in significantly lower negative affect compared to the control condition, p = .001. There were trends for lower explicit body dissatisfaction and urges to engage in compensatory behaviors in the mindfulness condition versus the control condition. No effects on implicit body dissatisfaction or binge eating urges were observed.
Conclusions
Overall, the findings highlight changes in negative affect as a potential mechanism underlying the effects of mindfulness-based interventions in treating eating disorders.
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Data Availability
All data are available at Datawiz (https://datawiz.leibniz-psychology.org/DataWiz/).
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Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance provided by Wei Ling Teo in the implementation of this study.
Funding
This study was funded by the National University of Singapore (NUS)’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Start Up Grant (R-581-000-153-133) that was granted to Shian-Ling Keng, and NUS’ Department of Psychology Undergraduate Thesis Support Fund granted to Qiuluan Ang.
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Shian-Ling Keng: conceptualized and co-designed the study with Qiuluan Ang, conducted data analyses, and finalized the drafting of the manuscript. Qiuluan Ang: co-designed the study, assisted with data analyses, and drafted the manuscript with Shian-Ling Keng. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the National University of Singapore’s Institutional Review Board.
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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Keng, SL., Ang, Q. Effects of Mindfulness on Negative Affect, Body Dissatisfaction, and Disordered Eating Urges. Mindfulness 10, 1779–1791 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01146-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01146-2