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In today’s New England Journal of Medicine there appears a study that compares different weight loss diets and concludes that “reduced-calorie diets result in clinically meaningful weight loss regardless of which macrnutrients they emphasize.” This is hardly a surprise to anyone familiar with treating obesity: what matters most is eating less, period. Sure there are some health benefits associated with different diets. But when it comes to the cold, hard task of weight loss, what matters most is reducing overall caloric intake. In an accompanying editorial, Martijn Katan of the Institute of Health Sciences, VU University, Amsterdam, writes prophetically: “We do not need another diet trial; we need a change of paradigm.” He then describes the excellent community approach known as EPODE being conducted in France (Ensemble, prevenons l’obesity des enfants [Together, let's prevent obesity in children]). Basically, this is a concerted community approach that encourages children to eat better and move more. Who could argue with this?

Why even talk about this on this blog? Here’s why: while paradigms are beginning to shift, consider movements like Mindful Eating that encourage bringing principles of Mindfulness to eating. From the Center for Mindful Eating website (http://www.tcme.org/):

“TCME is a forum for professionals across all disciplines interested in developing, deepening and understanding the value and importance of mindful eating. TCME provides a wide variety of resources and training for those seeking up-to-date information about mindful eating practices, research, and education.

Mindful eating has the powerful potential to transform people’s relationship to food and eating, to improve overall health, body image, relationships and self-esteem. Mindful eating involves many components such as:

• learning to make choices in beginning or ending a meal based on awareness of hunger and satiety cues;

• learning to identify personal triggers for mindless eating, such as emotions, social pressures, or certain foods;

• valuing quality over quantity of what you’re eating;

• appreciating the sensual, as well as the nourishing, capacity of food;

• feeling deep gratitude that may come from appreciating and experiencing food

Mindful eating draws substantially on the use of mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness helps focus our attention and awareness on the present moment, which in turn, helps us disengage from habitual, unsatisfying and unskillful habits and behaviors. Engaging in mindful eating meditation practices on a regular basis can help us discover a far more satisfying relationship to food and eating than we ever imagined or experienced before. A different kind of nourishment often emerges, the kind that offers satisfaction on a very deep emotional level.

Over the past 25 years, mindfulness practices, in general, have been shown to have a positive impact on many areas of psychological and physical health, including stress, depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and heart disease.   More recently, evidence is building that validates the benefits of mindful eating for treatment of the obesity as well as binge eating disorders. The benefits of mindful eating are not restricted to physical and emotional health improvements; they can also impact one’s entire life, through a better sense of balance and well-being.

The Center for Mindful Eating does not promote one single approach to mindful eating. We are committed to dialogue, support, sharing ideas, clinical experience and research.

It’s our hope that TCME can support you in developing your own mindful eating skills and insights which can then help you educate and encourage your clients to do the same.”

A change in paradigm indeed.