“Nourishing Our Lives”: Exploring the Roles of Food for College Students Through A Compassion-Focused Mindful Eating Intervention
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Hallie Katzman
CoPIs:
Chana Silver, Jonathan Cedeño
College:
The College of Health Professions and Human Services
Major:
School and Clinical Psychology
Faculty Research Advisor(s):
Donald Marks, Jennifer Block-Lerner
Abstract:
Self-compassion is defined as having an open, understanding, and nonjudgmental attitude towards one’s suffering and failures, and experiencing kind and caring feelings towards oneself (Neff, 2003). This metacognitive process requires mindfulness, which is a practice that encourages individuals to be intentionally aware of the moment (Shapiro, 2009) and observe thoughts and feelings without trying to change them (Neff, 2003). Previous research has explored the impact of both mindfulness and self-compassion on eating behaviors (Fan & Wang, 2022; Jordan et al., 2014). Findings have indicated that mindfulness and self-compassion are individually associated with healthy eating behaviors (Jordan et al., 2014; Rahimi-Ardabili et al., 2017) and may also have a joint impact on eating attitudes, healthier eating, and decreases in disordered eating (Shaw & Cassidy, 2021). This topic has also been studied among college students (Anderson et al., 2015; James et al., 2016; Taylor et al., 2015), as the vulnerable and transitioning nature of this population heightens the propensity for changes in eating behaviors (Shaw & Cassidy, 2021). However, most of this research has been conducted with the aim of reducing eating disorder symptomatology (Anderson et al., 2015; Shaw & Cassidy, 2021; Taylor et al., 2015). While previous literature has examined the sociocultural influences of food practices (D’Sylva & Beagan, 2011; Mingay et al., 2021; Monterrosa et al., 2020; Reddy & van Dam, 2020), to our knowledge, discussions of culture and personal experiences with food are not typically included in related psychological interventions.
To address this gap, we propose a brief compassion-focused mindful eating group intervention for college students that emphasizes cultural and personal experiences with food. The proposed group intervention will be adapted from compassion focused-acceptance commitment therapy (CF-ACT; Tirch et al., 2014). It will consist of four 60-minute weekly sessions administered via a secure telehealth platform. Pre- and post-intervention measures assessing mindfulness, mindful eating, self-compassion, relationships with food, and connectedness will be administered. Attitudes about the intervention’s cultural element will be assessed with open-ended questions following the intervention. Consistent with previous research from across the world (D’Sylva & Beagan, 2011; Reddy & van Dam, 2020), this exploratory study will have implications for the future of mindful eating intervention work and encourage the inclusion of cultural components in prevention and intervention approaches involving eating behaviors