Abstract
Objectives
Mindfulness has been associated with many psychological and physiological benefits and recently it has begun to consider the impact of mindfulness-based interventions on healthy eating habits through mindful eating. However, studies conducted with children subjected to mindfulness-based eating sessions in groups and related to healthy eating are very limited. The aim of this study was to investigate whether different sessions of mindful eating could affect food intake and eating behaviour in children.
Methods
A between-subject experiment was conducted during 1 month with 8–9-year-old children. Mindful eating group (MEG) received three mindfulness-based eating sessions. The control group (CG) received three nutritional education sessions. During these sessions, the kids fulfilled different questionnaires about food habits and mindful eating state. The final session consisted of an ad libitum mid-morning snack with healthy and unhealthy choices. Caloric intake and food choices were recorded after the session, as well as different validated questionnaires to measure other variables such as satiety and liking.
Results
During the snack buffet, the MEG showed significantly lower food intake and energy intake compared to CG (p = 0.03 and p = 0.02, respectively). Regarding food choices, unhealthy food intake and unhealthy caloric consumption were significantly lower in MEG, compared to CG (p = 0.03, in both cases).
Conclusions
Our findings suggest the effectiveness of mindfulness-based eating sessions to reduce caloric intake and promote the election of healthier dietary food choices in child population.
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Acknowledgements
We thank all the children who participated in the study as well as their parents and members of Santo Tomas Lizeoa School who facilitated the recruitment. We also thank Marta Verona for her technical assistance.
Funding
We would like to acknowledge Institut Olga Triballat for the financial support.
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LG: collaborated with the execution of the study and wrote the paper. IT analysed the data and wrote part of the results. RT collaborated with the execution of the study and the analysis of the data. EM collaborated in the writing and editing of the final manuscript. UE designed and executed the study and collaborated with the writing and editing of the manuscript.
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Ethical approval: All procedures performed in the study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the ethical Commission of Basque Culinary Center - Mondragon Unibertsitatea (005/2014) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Gayoso, L., de Tomas, I., Téllez, R. et al. Mindfulness-Based Eating Intervention in Children: Effects on Food Intake and Food-Related Behaviour During a Mid-morning Snack. Mindfulness 12, 1185–1194 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01587-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01587-0