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Relationships Between Dietary Intake and Weight-Related Experiential Avoidance Following Behavioral Weight-Loss Treatment

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Abstract

Background

Interventions targeting weight-related experiential avoidance (EA) and disinhibited eating (DE) may also improve diet quality. Participants with overweight/obesity and DE who recently completed a behavioral weight-loss program were randomized to receive acceptance and commitment therapy or continued behavioral weight-loss treatment. In this secondary analysis, we explored (1) change in diet quality from baseline to 6-month follow-up (FU) and (2) whether weight-related EA at baseline and (3) change in weight-related EA during treatment were related to change in diet quality from baseline to FU.

Method

Veterans (N = 68) completed food frequency questionnaires at baseline and FU, which were used to generate diet quality scores on the healthy eating index-15 (HEI-15). Weight-related EA was assessed using the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire for Weight-Related Difficulties-Revised (AAQW-R) at baseline, post-treatment, and FU. Aims were examined with mixed ANOVA analyses.

Results

Across both treatment groups, HEI-15 scores declined from baseline to FU. Women’s HEI-15 decreased by about 5 times that of men. Baseline AAWQ-R was negatively associated with change in HEI-15. Neither AAWQ-R at post-treatment nor change in AAQW-R from baseline to post-treatment was significantly associated with change in HEI-15 at FU.

Conclusions

Greater weight-related EA at baseline was associated with lower diet quality at FU, but change in weight-related EA during treatment did not predict change in diet quality at FU. Interventions targeting DE and weight-loss may require specific components to improve and sustain healthy dietary intake in Veterans with obesity and DE.

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Funding

This project was supported by Veterans Affairs Rehabilitation Research and Development grant I01RX000381 and registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01757847). Drs. Afari and Herbert and Ms. Dochat are partially supported by R01DK106415 from National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Dr. Wooldridge is supported by the VA Office of Academic Affairs Advanced Fellowship in Women’s Health.

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. VA San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, USA

    Jennalee S. Wooldridge, Brian H. Blanco, Matthew S. Herbert, Jennifer Salamat & Niloofar Afari

  2. Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, USA

    Jennalee S. Wooldridge, Brian H. Blanco, Matthew S. Herbert & Niloofar Afari

  3. San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, San Diego State University, University of California, San Diego, USA

    Cara Dochat

  4. Center of Excellence for Stress and Mental Health (CESAMH), San Diego, USA

    Matthew S. Herbert & Niloofar Afari

  5. Center for Work Life Wellbeing, Christiana Care, Newark, USA

    Kathryn M. Godfrey

Authors
  1. Jennalee S. Wooldridge
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  2. Brian H. Blanco
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  4. Matthew S. Herbert
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  7. Niloofar Afari
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Correspondence to Niloofar Afari.

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Wooldridge, J.S., Blanco, B.H., Dochat, C. et al. Relationships Between Dietary Intake and Weight-Related Experiential Avoidance Following Behavioral Weight-Loss Treatment. Int.J. Behav. Med. 29, 104–109 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-021-09990-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-021-09990-0

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