Bringing Awareness Into Eating

NCT ID: NCT04021745

Last Updated: 2020-01-13

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 65 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2019-07-15
• Study Completion Date: 2019-10-28

Brief Summary

The purpose of this study is to test an app-based mindful eating intervention to decrease the reward value of unhealthy food.

Detailed Description

Eating healthily is highly beneficial. However, changing eating habits is notoriously difficult. Individuals often believe that they simply need to "restrain" their eating impulses in order to eat more healthily. However, such an approach has not only been shown to be quite ineffective over long time spans, it is also associated with aversive feelings: It simply does not feel good to struggle with one's own impulses.

Investigators are testing a new approach to overcoming unhealthy eating habits, which utilizes mindful eating to change the reward value of unhealthy food. The hypothesis is that if people pay attention to how unhealthy food (e.g. "junk" food) makes them feel in their bodies, their liking it and desire to eat it will decrease naturally. Participants might become aware, for example, that eating a whole bag of chips leads to nausea, while eating a salad makes them feel fresh and energetic.

Investigators will assess whether and how the anticipated and actual satisfaction associated with unhealthy food will decrease the more often participants use this intervention.

Conditions

Stress Eating; Reward-based Eating; Craving-related Eating

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NA
• Intervention Model: SINGLE_GROUP
• Primary Study Purpose: TREATMENT
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

App-based mindful eating

The intervention will be delivered through a mindful eating smartphone application using the latest evidence-based mindful eating methods and behavior change theory.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

App-based mindful eating

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

This is a mindful eating smartphone application comprised of twenty-eight modules of 10-15 minutes each designed to teach mindfulness for binge eating. The feature that is being tested will ask individuals to do a mental exercise when they're craving and will measure their satisfaction related to the experience.

Interventions

App-based mindful eating

This is a mindful eating smartphone application comprised of twenty-eight modules of 10-15 minutes each designed to teach mindfulness for binge eating. The feature that is being tested will ask individuals to do a mental exercise when they're craving and will measure their satisfaction related to the experience.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

1. Craves & overeats a food at least 4 times/week (can be a specific food or food category - i.e. salty or sweet)

2. Desire to change eating habits

3. Owns a smartphone

4. Fluency in English

Exclusion Criteria

1. Current eating disorder

2. Current strict diet (e.g. paleo, keto, vegan, calorie restriction)

3. Pregnancy

4. Current insulin use

5. Previous use of the EatRightNow application

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 70 Years
• Eligible Sex: FEMALE
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Brown University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Judson Brewer, MD PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Brown University

Locations

Brown University

Providence, Rhode Island, United States

Countries

United States

Other Identifiers

1904002405

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id