Paper Title
Effects of Mindfulness and Mindfulness-Based Yoga Interventions on Body Image, Social Physique Anxiety, and Well-Being in College Students with Eating Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Abstract
Background - 4–10% of students have nutritional disorders (Jones & Griffiths, 2018). Students with these conditions may have a poor body image, social physique anxiety, and poor health. Emerging evidence suggests that mindfulness and mindfulness-based yoga interventions help treat eating disorders by cultivating awareness and acceptanceof thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations (Haynos et al., 2017; Khalsa et al., 2016).It is unclear which intervention helps students with eating disorders.
Purpose - Comparing mindfulness and mindfulness-based yoga interventions on body image, social physique anxiety, and well-being in college students with eating disorders was the objective of this literature review and meta-analysis.
Method - We searched PubMed, PsycINFO, and Web of Science for mindfulness, yoga, eating disorders, body image, socialphysiqueanxiety, well-being, and college students to assess research.The search was only for English-language articles from 2010 to 2022. The first search turned up 768 articles, which were screened based on their titles and abstracts. Then, the full-text articles were looked at to see if they were eligible. 13 studieswith 825 participants were included in the final systematic review and meta-analysis.
Results - Mindfulness interventions had a moderate effect on body image (d = 0.57, 95% confidence interval [0.28, 0.87]), a large effect on social physique anxiety (d = -0.76, 95% confidence interval [-1.04, -0.47]), and a small effect on well-being (d = 0.31, 95% confidence interval [0.11, 0.52]).Mindfulness-based yoga interventions had a moderate effect on body image (d = 0.63, 95% CI [0.28, 0.97]), a large effect on social physique anxiety (d = -0.96, 95% CI [-1.31, -0.62]), and a moderate effect on well-being (d = 0.43, 95% CI [0.12, 0.74]).
Conclusions - Mindfulness and mindfulness-based yoga interventions improve body image, social physique anxiety, and well-being in college students with eating disorders. Mindfulness-based yogainterventions improve body image and well-being more than mindfulness alone. These results show that mindfulness-based yoga interventions may complement typical eating problem therapy for college students. The long-term impact of these programs and the most effective mindfulness-based interventions for this group deserve more study.
Keywords - Mindfulness, Yoga, Eating Disorders, Well-Being, Meta-Analysis.