Efficacy of Mindfulness on the Food-Related Attention Bias and the Body Image in the Overweight People

Introduction and Overweight and obesity can lead to psychological and emotional damages in the people. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of mindfulness on the food-related attention bias and the body image in the overweight people.Mythology: The research method of the present study was quasi-experimental with pretest, posttest, control group and three-month follow-up period. The statistical population of the study included the overweight people with above-25 BMI who referred to the body weight control centers in the city of Mashhad in 2019 and were selected through purposive sampling method; 36 subjects were selected from them according to inclusion and exclusion criteria and they were randomly accommodated into experimental and control groups. The instrument to assess the subjects included the computerized test of food emotional stroop to assess food-related attention bias and body image questionnaire (Brown et.al, 1990) to assess the persons’ attitude toward his/her body image which was administered in three stages before and after eight-week intervention of mindfulness and three-month follow-up after finishing the intervention on the subjects. The data analysis of the study was conducted through repeated measurement ANOVA. The result of data analysis showed the significant difference between the subjects’ reaction time to the food emotional stroop test and the gotten scores from the body image questionnaire in two groups and it proves significant efficacy of mindfulness intervention method on the degree of food-related attention bias and the body image in the overweight people.