Piloting a Novel Intuitive Eating Intervention for College Women With Disordered Eating

Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Disordered Eating Behaviors

Treatments: Behavioral: Group Intervention; Behavioral: Guided Self-Help

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03612661

HM20012263

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this research study is to pilot test a new intervention that helps young adult women learn adaptive eating and exercise strategies, increase their body acceptance, decrease unhealthy weight control behaviors and prevent future eating and problems. This intervention is experimental, and the study will test its feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness.

Full description

The intervention, Intuitive Eating, is an eating approach that addresses important risk factors and promotes adaptive eating attitudes and behaviors. It has three central tenets: 1) unconditional permission to eat when hungry, 2) eating for physical rather than emotional reasons, and 3) eating according to hunger and satiety cues. Intuitive Eating has ten principles that focus on rejecting the dieting mentality, honoring hunger cues, decreasing restrictive behaviors that lead to deprivation and bingeing, challenging rigid food rules, increasing awareness of satiety, discovering the satisfaction of food, coping with emotions without food, respecting and accepting one's body, using exercise as self-care, and balancing nutrition with satisfaction.

Enrollment: 71 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 18 to 25 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Not currently pregnant
• Enrolled in postsecondary education at VCU
• Have body image or eating concerns

Exclusion criteria

• Eating disorder threshold risk
• Men
• Pregnant women

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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71 participants in 2 patient groups

Intuitive Eating Group Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Intuitive eating intervention delivered in a group format with 8-10 women, led by 2 facilitators.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Group Intervention

Intuitive Eating Guided Self-Help

Experimental group

Description:

Participants in this condition engage in 8 weeks of self-study of the intuitive eating intervention have ~20 minute weekly phone call with a study interventionist.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Guided Self-Help