The Large-Scale Effects Of Mindful Eating

We’ve written before about mindful eating; our first article on the topic was putting a spotlight on Dr. Rupy “The Kitchen Doctor” Aula, and his recommendations:

Interoception: Improving Our Awareness Of Body Cues

For the most part, mindful eating is thought of as a way to slow down our consumption of any given meal, and thus appreciate it more, as well as enjoying better digestion (and thus, better nutrient absorption—more on that at the end of today’s feature, in the “learn more” section).

Indeed, it’s often (rightly) touted as a way to Hack Your Hunger ← our article on same, for which mindful eating is one part

But what about the big picture?

What the French discovered

A French team of researchers (Dr. Pauline Paolassini-Guesnier et al.) investigated mindful eating on a large (n=13,768) scale.

Since this needs defining in order to do science to it, mindful eating was defined for the purposes of this study as being present, attentive, and non-judgmental during eating, responding to internal cues rather than external triggers. These items were measured by questionnaire, along with other factors such as hunger/satiety, and food journal recording what people actually ate.

Higher mindful eating scores correlated with:

• Increased adherence to healthy plant-based diets.
• Reduced intake of unhealthy plant-based foods, meat, and dairy.
• Higher likelihood of being vegetarian, pescatarian, or vegan.

Note: this study in no way promoted, suggested, or asked leading questions about, adherence to a healthy plant-based diet, or avoidance of animal products. These were simply observed results.

Interestingly, no comparable association was found between mindful eating and fish consumption (or lack thereof). There are two reasonable hypotheses to explain this:

• When it comes to health, there is more growing awareness about the harmful effects of various kinds of terrestrial meat (especially red meat, and pork which brings similar metabolic risks) and dairy, while fish is popularly still considered healthy in moderation (science broadly agrees).
• When it comes to ethical considerations, humans tend to empathize more with our fellow mammals than we do with fish, and this may also sway decisions about dietary choices.

We are a health science publication, not moral philosophy publication, so we’ve not written any ethical treatises here, but we have written on the topic of the health risks (and benefits) of animal products: Do We Need Animal Products To Be Healthy?

There were some limitations, most notably that the study sample over-represented health-conscious people, and the cross-sectional design on the study can’t confirm causality (i.e. it looks a lot like mindful eating promotes these healthier dietary patterns, but it could be that the healthier dietary patterns promote mindful eating, or both).

You can read the paper in full, here: Mindful eating is associated with a healthier plant-based diet in the NutriNet-Santé study

Want to learn more?

If you’d like to take up mindful eating, we wrote a step-by-step guide:

Mindful Eating: How To Get More Out Of What’s On Your Plate

Enjoy!