Attentive Eating for Weight Loss: Proof of Concept Non-blinded Randomised Control Trial

There is evidence that enhancing memory for recent eating and focusing attention on food being consumed influences later energy intake. Studies have shown that attending to food being eaten can reduce food intake. This has since been implemented into a smartphone based 'attentive eating' application. In a feasibility trial of this mobile phone application, adults with overweight or obesity were encouraged to eat attentively by photographing their meals and making satiety ratings after they had eaten. Participants were also required to review what else they had eaten that day before entering their next meal, with an overall aim of encouraging a more attentive eating style. Adherence data and qualitative interviews suggested that the mobile phone app was generally acceptable to participants and easy to use. Participants reported that they felt the application increased their awareness of what they had been eating. There was also an average weight loss of 1.5kg across the 4 week period that participants used the application for. Given that the previous feasibility trial included no control condition, the aim of the current trial was to examine initial proof of concept for effectiveness of an attentive eating smartphone weight loss application.

In the current study the investigators hypothesised that participants randomised to the attentive eating smartphone based condition (experimental condition) would lose significantly more weight than participants randomised to the control condition.

The study is a single centre, parallel, two arm, individually randomised 8 week controlled trial in adults with overweight and obesity in the Merseyside area of England.