Stress and Eating in Adolescents: From Laboratory Findings to a Mindfulness Pilot Intervention
Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: Adolescent obesity is a public health concern in the United States, and obese adolescents have a higher likelihood of comorbid health risks into adulthood.Stress represents one predictor of unhealthy eating and obesity risk in adolescents.Higher levels of stress have been related to emotional eating (eating in response to negative affective experiences).Mindfulness may buffer the relation between stress and poor health behaviors.However, mindfulness interventions have not targeted adolescent emotional eating.Study 1 examined associations among dispositional mindfulness, perceived stress, and emotional eating in 151 adolescents participating in a laboratory stress paradigm.Results showed greater levels of mindfulness associated with lower levels of perceived stress following a laboratory stressor, perceived overall stress, and selfreported emotional eating.Mindfulness moderated the relation between perceived overall stress and self-reported emotional eating.No significant findings were noted with food intake following a laboratory stressor associated with mindfulness or perceived stress.Study 2 involved six adolescents participating in a four-session mindfulness-based pilot treatment targeting emotional eating.Using a multiple-baseline single-subjects design, no conclusive changes in daily reports of perceived stress were observed.Five of six adolescents showed relative decreases in emotional eating urges and behaviors throughout treatment compared to baseline.Together, findings from a laboratory setting (Study 1) and pilot treatment context (Study 2) suggested that mindfulness may play an important role in buffering against the effects of stress on unhealthy eating.These findings should be used to further inform experimental and intervention research in using mindfulness techniques for emotional eating in adolescents.
Author: Fahrenkamp, Amy Jean
Institution: Kent State University
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6987339332