An Intuitive Eating Intervention Improves Dietary Restraint, Body Appreciation, and Intuitive Eating in Female Undergraduates: A Pilot Study

Abstract Objectives Dietary restraint and low body appreciation are common among female undergraduates and are related to disordered eating. Intuitive eating is an approach to eating that promotes listening to internal cues (e.g., hunger and fullness) and may help reduce disordered eating. It was hypothesized that an intuitive eating intervention would decrease levels of dietary restraint and increase levels of body appreciation and intuitive eating. Methods Fourteen female undergraduates were randomized to two groups. The intervention consisted of 5 weekly intuitive eating sessions led by two Registered Dietitians. One group received the intervention after the other. The Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire-18 (TFEQ-18) assessed dietary restraint across three subscales, the Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2) assessed body appreciation, and the Intuitive Eating Scale-2 (IES-2) assessed intuitive eating and its four subscales. SPSS v 26 software was used for analyses. Paired sample t-tests were run to examine within-participants changes in outcome variables pre- and post-intervention and at a 5-week follow-up. The significance level was set at .05. Results There was a significant decrease in TFEQ-18 subscales pre- to post-intervention, including cognitive restraint (61.5 ± 20.4 to 39.3 ± 18.0, P < .001), uncontrolled eating (55.8 ± 17.9 to 43.9 ± 10.1, P = .01), and emotional eating (68.3 ± 23.0 to 44.4 ± 18.5, P < .001). There was a significant increase in BAS-2 scores (3.1 ± 0.6 to 3.7 ± 0.5, P = .001) and all IES-2 subscales, including unconditional permission to eat (2.7 ± 0.7 to 3.8 ± 0.6, P < .001), eating for physical rather than emotional reasons (2.5 ± 0.6 to 3.3 ± 0.7, P < .001), relying on hunger and satiety cues (2.8 ± 0.7 to 3.7 ± 0.6, P < .001), body food-choice congruence (3.8 ± 0.6 to 4.1 ± 0.7, P = .02), and total IES-2 scores (2.8 ± 0.5 to 3.7 ± 0.5, P < .001), pre- to post-intervention. Post-intervention scores compared to the 5-week follow-up (n = 7) revealed no significant changes indicating that the pre- to post-intervention changes were sustained. Conclusions This study provides data suggesting that a 5-week intuitive eating intervention may help decrease dietary restraint and increase body appreciation and intuitive eating in female undergraduates. Intuitive eating may be a promising strategy to prevent disordered eating in undergraduates. Funding Sources No external funding.