Mindful and intuitive eating are trends in the nutrition and wellness space that take this lesson to heart. You might have heard of mindfulness if you’ve ever downloaded a meditation app or practiced yoga. Mindfulness is the practice of being present, in the moment. Practicing mindfulness involves focusing all of your thoughts and mental energy on your immediate experience, letting your feelings and experiences wash over you without judging yourself for wandering thoughts. Researchers today are exploring various types of mindfulness practice to help manage pain, stress, depression, and yes, even negative relationships to food. Our poor relationships to food manifest themselves in binge eating, emotional eating and other disordered eating patterns.

Excessive body weight has become one of the most pressing public health issues of our time. Being overweight increases your risk of developing many metabolic diseases and diseases associated with aging, including diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, stroke, arthritis and certain cancers. According to the 2015–2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Study (NHANES), nearly 40% of U.S. adults are obese. This percentage has also increased over time.

Maintaining a healthy weight is hard work for many of us. A healthy weight is more accessible to those who can and do eat balanced meals with plenty of fruits and vegetables, move or exercise daily and sleep the recommended 7 to 9 hours per night. But some of us deal with chronic stress, poor eating habits and eating disorders that can make it very difficult to maintain a healthy weight and a healthy relationship with food.

“Problematic food and eating behaviors, for example binge and emotional eating, have been characterized in obesity. In mindfulness, an individual observes their immediate experience using an open and non-judgmental stance.” — Warren, Smith & Ashwell, 2018

Emotional food cravings are a real thing… Credit: Vasyl Dolmatov.

Eating disorders can often require seeking treatment from a specialist, as some disordered eating patterns can have serious health implications. However, many individuals who don’t have diagnosed eating disorders still have poor relationships with food that can ultimately impact their health. For example, binge eating, emotional eating and eating in response to non-physical cues or food cravings (you know what this feels like if you’ve ever craved sweets or wanted to eat just because something looked or smelled good, even if you weren’t hungry) have been linked to weight gain.

“Findings suggest that in the management of binge eating, the ability to eat mindfully is a key technique.” — Warren, Smith & Ashwell, 2018

Binge eating is the consumption of large amounts of food and loss of control over eating. It is closely linked with obesity and obesity behaviors. Emotional eating is the consumption of food in response to emotional arousal. If you’ve ever eaten to suppress negative feelings (the classic crying in front of the TV with a bowl of ice cream), you know what emotional eating feels like. Emotional eating is linked with poor diet, greater intake of energy-dense, sweet and high-fat snacks and lower intake of fruits and vegetables.

“Food cravings have been shown to lead to obsessive thoughts about food and impulsive consumption of craved foods in some individuals, which increases the risk for weight gain.” — O’Reilly et al., 2015.

Physicians have traditionally been poorly equipped to help their patients with unhealthy or disordered eating patterns. Binge eating, emotional eating and food cravings are not commonly addressed in weight loss programs and interventions. Physicians rarely offer specific nutritional advice or healthy eating plans, and unfortunately relatively few people actively seek out the help of nutritionists and registered dietitians.

But in reaction to modern cultural trends toward sedentary lifestyles, processed foods and eating-on-the-go, researchers and health-conscious individuals alike have turned to relatively simple interventions that can foster better relationships with food, including intermittent fasting and mindful eating. These interventions can be practiced by almost anyone, promote a more intuitive approach to feeding our bodies, and may naturally restrict incoming calories.