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Service Evaluation of an Eating Eating Group Intervention Pilot for Adult Weight Management Programme in the UK

The Emotional Eating Group, based on mindfulness and therapy, helped participants reduce emotional eating and improve mental health. The pilot showed strong benefits, highlighting the need for long-term psychological support and potential for digital delivery.

Service Evaluation of an Eating Eating Group Intervention Pilot for Adult Weight Management Programme in the UK

Dr Nadine Heywood, Dr AB Sirin-Ayva, Dr Sophie Edwards, Prof Paul Gately

Introduction

Emotional eating is a prevalent concept among people living with obesity, and it is also related to some other mental health issues. Morelife UK provides weight management services across the UK and supports clients with individual therapy sessions to help them with their weight management journey. Group intervention is a valuable supportive environment for participants, with the benefits of learning new skills, gaining new perspectives, and being anonymous. Morelife provides a specialist programme to people living with complex obesity with a BMI>35. Health professionals refer clients to this programme.

Methods

Morelife clinicians (Psychologists, Dietitians) and therapists created the Emotional Eating Pilot Programme, consisting of 8 weekly sessions with 6-8 participants based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Mindfulness. Each session is 90 minutes to enable group discussion. The programme is offered to clients who are struggling with emotional eating and scoring high on PHQ and GAD-7, and is facilitated by a therapist.

Measurements

The questionnaires below are used to see the changes in emotional appetite, emotion regulation, depression and anxiety in participants.

The Emotional Appetite Questionnaire (EMAQ)
Has 22 items and focuses on positive and negative emotions. The EMAQ was shown to have construct validity, and emotional
eating was significantly correlated with BMI.

Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS 18)
Short form of DERS questionnaire to understand emotion-related constructs and treatment progress.

Generalised Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7)
A self-reported questionnaire to screen the severity of generalised anxiety disorder includes 7 items.

Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9)
A self-reported instrument to monitor the severity of depression and response to treatment.

Results

The results highlight the importance of professional and group support in implementing a healthy lifestyle. One year support, which is the commissioning timeline for the weight management services across the UK, is not enough time for the clients. The clients highlight needing more specific support and personalised feedback to deal with their complex needs. Overall, they find the content and proposed techniques very useful during their weight management journey with Morelife. These results are insightful to inform tenders and policymakers to shape public weight management services across the UK. Exploring digital ways of supporting clients with complex needs as a low-cost option should be considered by the commissioners.  

Conclusion

This pilot programme outcomes show that the Emotional Eating Group programme is an efficient tool to help clients reduce their emotional eating significantly, improving depression, anxiety and emotion regulation. The weight loss data is limited as the main intention was to focus on the psychological impacts of this programme. However, the current weight loss results of the study indicate that weight loss is a byproduct of this intervention.

References:

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