Effect of Mindfulness-Based Stress Management Therapy on Emotion Regulation, Anxiety, Depression, and Food Addiction in Obese People: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Many obese people have different psychological symptoms such as anxiety, depression, emotional regulation problems, etc., food addiction is also another psychological problem associated with obesity. In this research, for the first time, we investigated the effect of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) treatment on anxiety, depression, difficulty in emotional regulation, and food addiction in obese people.

In this clinical trial, 40 obese women were selected from urban health centers in Kashan, 2018. They were recruited using purposive convenience sampling. They were then randomly divided into an intervention group (MBSR, n=20) or a control group (educational session without any treatment, n=20). The MBSR was implemented according to the Kabat Ziin protocol during weekly sessions of 90-minute for eight weeks. The participants were evaluated at pre-test, post-test and three-month follow-up using the anxiety, stress, depression scale (DASS-21), difficulty in emotion regulation scale (DERS), and the Yale food addiction scale (YFAS). Data analysis was performed applying repeated measures ANOVA in SPSS16.

The intervention group was found with a significant reduction in the levels of anxiety (P<0.01), depression (P<0.000), difficulty in emotional regulation (P=0.02), and severity of food addiction (P=0.003) compared to the control group at post-test. At follow-up, we observed significant reduction in the levels of anxiety, depression, and food addiction (P=0.003), but emotion regulation did not show a significant reduction compared to the control group (P>0.05).

Mindfulness-based stress reduction treatment could be considered as a part of comprehensive medical care for obese people.