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. 2024 Jan 19:14:1308609.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1308609. eCollection 2023.

Mindfulness, mental health, and motives for eating tasty foods when not in metabolic need

Katherine G Moore  1 , Justess D Rice  1 , John E Gampher  1 , Mary M Boggiano  1
Affiliations

Mindfulness, mental health, and motives for eating tasty foods when not in metabolic need

Katherine G Moore et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Habitual consumption of highly palatable foods when not in metabolic need (HPF eating) is linked to obesity. High HPF consumption is also linked to mental health disorder (MHD) symptoms. Mindfulness-based interventions are popular treatments for obesity and MHDs, but little is known about the relationship between trait mindfulness and motive-based HPF eating. Therefore, a total of 927 young adults completed a survey that included the Palatable Eating Motives Scale-7 (which identifies Coping-, Reward enhancement-, Social-, and Conformity-eating), the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale, and demographic and body mass index (BMI) questions. An MHD questionnaire allowed a comparison of HPF eating between participants with and without various MHDs. Regressions revealed that Coping-eating was independently associated with lower mindfulness and also greater perceived stress, higher BMI, and female sex. Of these variables, only lower mindfulness was independently associated with Reward-, Social-, and Conformity-eating. Coping- and Reward-eating were more frequent in participants with versus without an anxiety disorder, depression, ADD/ADHD, and PTSD. Coping-eating was also more frequent in participants with body dysmorphic disorder. These findings warrant investigations in participants with clinically validated diagnoses for DSM-specific MHDs. Results from such investigations and the uncovered nature of associations between motive-specific HPF eating and trait mindfulness could provide novel targets to improve mindfulness-based interventions for obesity and MHDs.

Keywords: coping; eating behavior; hedonic; mindfulness-based interventions; non-homeostatic; obesity; palatable; psychiatric disorder.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Effect of reported mental health disorder status (No Diagnosis versus Diagnosed) on the frequency of HPF eating for each of the four PEMS-7 motives for ADD/ADHD, anxiety disorder, BDD, depression, and PTSD. Error bars are 95% CI; *p < 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001 versus corresponding “No” group. “M” over the asterisks indicates that the difference was no longer significant when mindfulness (MAAS scores) was covaried. η2p for ADD/ADHD: Coping = 0.016, Reward = 0.010; anxiety disorder: Coping = 0.076, Reward = 0.011; BDD: Coping = 0.014; depression: Coping = 0.090, Reward = 0.027; and PTSD: Coping = 0.012, Reward = 0.014.
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