A Brief Virtual ACT Workshop for Emotional Eating

McGill University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Eating Behavior; Emotional Eating

Treatments: Behavioral: Virtual ACT Workshop for Emotional Eating

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04457804

01

Details and patient eligibility

About

Emotional eating is a behaviour that has been linked to weight concerns, mental health concerns, and disordered eating. Effective interventions have been developed to treat emotional eating, however these exist solely in the context of promoting weight loss. Emotional eating is not exclusive to those who struggle with weight and thus interventions are needed that target those who engage in emotional eating regardless of their weight status. The present study aims to do so through the implementation of a brief online Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) workshop for emotional eaters.

Full description

Emotional eating is defined as increased food consumption in response to negative emotions, and has been linked to weight concerns, mental health concerns, and disordered eating behaviours. Effective interventions have been developed that address emotional eating, namely to improve weight loss. Such interventions are based in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which encourages tolerance of internal cues, such as emotions, and external cues, such as food.

Previous studies have found that brief ACT interventions are effective for the reduction of emotional eating. Our laboratory has recently developed and pilot-tested a one-day ACT workshop intervention for emotional eating, which was found to be effective for reducing emotional eating and deemed feasible and acceptable by participants.

The present study was developed with the aim to adapt the above mentioned workshop intervention to an online format in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. The study aims to test the efficacy, feasibility and acceptability of a brief, online version of the above mentioned one-day ACT workshop for emotional eating. The workshops will be delivered through the Zoom online platform.

Enrollment: 30 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Self-identifying as emotional-eater
• Being over the age of 18

Exclusion criteria

• N/A

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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30 participants in 1 patient group

Online ACT workshop for Emotional Eating

Experimental group

Description:

All participants will be assigned to 2, 1.5 hour interventions using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) techniques to help reduce emotional eating.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Virtual ACT Workshop for Emotional Eating