The impact of an integrated nutrition and mindfulness intervention on health and wellbeing

It is well established that physical, mental, and social factors all contribute to a person's mental health and overall sense of wellbeing. There is little research, however, on how these various components interact to contribute to overall wellness. A holistic approach to health takes the perspective that we are complex beings made up of mind, body, and spirit, and that these are integrated aspects of humanity. The current study sought to explore mind and body components of health by comparing the effectiveness of three interventions on physical and mental health and wellbeing: 1) a nutrition education intervention, 2) a mindfulness skills intervention, and 3) an integrated mindful eating intervention combining elements of the first two. It was hypothesized that while all interventions would lead to improvements on both physical and mental health outcome measures, the integrated mindbody intervention would have significantly more impact on improving health and wellbeing than either of the other two. A mixed-methods, quasi-experimental design was used with 47 healthy female college students who completed one of the three 4-week interventions. Outcome variables included physical and mental health, stress level, life enjoyment, and quality of life, as well as mindfulness and changes in diet. Quantitative measures were supplemented with qualitative information about the perceived benefits of participating in the study, as well as factors that either supported or hindered ability to engage in the intervention. Results indicated that while some health improvements were in fact seen for participants in all three groups, there was not a significant difference found between them. This would indicate that while all three groups were effective in improving several aspects of health (i.e., mental health, stress, quality of life, and mindfulness), no one intervention was found to be significantly more effective than another. Although the main hypothesis of the study (that an integrated mindful eating intervention would be superior to a nutrition or mindfulness intervention alone) was not supported, the findings contribute potentially valuable information about the holistic impact of health interventions, regardless of their focus, and the benefits and recommended timing of such brief interventions with a college student sample.