Conceptual Congruence in Mindfulness-Based Weight Loss Intervention Studies
Open accessAbstract
Whether one kind of mindfulness applies to all situations or only some (i.e., scope) is controversial. Eating may not be an everyday behavior subsumed under everyday mindfulness. To rigorously test the efficacy of mindfulness-based weight loss interventions, researchers must use scales that measure the type of mindfulness manipulated by the intervention. The mixed findings of mindfulness-based weight loss intervention studies may be related to the lack of conceptual congruence (i.e., the pairing of interventions and measures of the same scope). The aims of this systematic review were to: (a) describe the scopes of the mindfulness interventions and measures used in mindfulness-based weight loss intervention studies; and (b) compare conceptual congruence to the statistical significance of mindfulness and weight outcomes of each study. All articles published prior to December 31, 2016 were retrieved from PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and Embase. After screening and full-text review, eight articles were included in the review. Five studies paired mindfulness-based eating interventions with general mindfulness measures; two studies paired mindfulness-based eating interventions with eating-specific mindfulness measures; and one study paired a general mindfulness intervention with a general mindfulness measure. There was no apparent relationship between conceptual congruence and the statistical significance of the mindfulness and weight outcomes. However, given other findings and the limitations of this review, further investigation is needed. In particular, future studies should include mediation analyses using both general and eating-specific mindfulness measures.
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The potential mediating roles of depression and BMI in the relationship between the four facets of mindful eating and eating disorders remain understudied.
“However, the potential mediating roles of depression and body mass index (BMI) in the relationship between the four facets of mindful eating and eating disorders remain understudied.”
From Four Facet Mindful Eating and Eating Disorder Risk: Mediation By Depression and Body Mass Index. (2026) · cites this paper as [32]
The Discussion calls for mediation analyses of how general and eating-specific mindfulness relate to weight-loss outcomes. The Introduction describes five factors of mindful eating, not four. Neither passage addresses whether depression and BMI mediate a relationship between mindful-eating facets and eating disorders; searches for those mediators and that relationship found no supporting passage. (LLM, conf=0.74)
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- Authors
- Schultz, M. B.
- Affiliations
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- Corresponding author
- Schultz, Michael B.
- ORCID
- Schultz, Michael B.
- Venue
- Mindfulness
- Published
- 2017-11-25
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1028-1036
- ISSN
- 1868-8527 (ISSN-L)
- 1868-8535
- PMC
- PMC6136442
- OpenAlex
- W2768594830
- Cited by
- 5
- References
- 51
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 0.68
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Mindfulness (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Nursing Research (F31NR017108, T32NR007091)
- Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (Jonas Nurse Scholars Program)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Keywords
- weight loss outcomes
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