To accompany feature “‘Mindfulness in eating pays the body big dividends”

SCIENCE 

Before Reading: 

1.  When you eat in front of the TV or while goofing off on a device, do you think you tend to eat more,  eat less or the usual amount? Would you even notice if someone sneakily kept refilling a bowl of snacks?          

2.  Why might eating without paying very much attention contribute to health problems?

During Reading: 

1.  What does the term mindfulness refer to?     

2.  According to Frankie Engelking, what happens when students begin practicing mindful eating?   

3.  What are the circumstances where people tend to eat mindlessly, according to Brian Wansink’s research?  

4.  When a study shows that two things (for example, mindfulness and eating habits) are correlated, what can researchers conclude about the relationship between them?

5.  During the mindfulness exercises in Christian Jordan’s research, what three things did participants focus on?  

6.  In Frederick Hecht’s research, what healthy outcomes occurred for obese participants who received training in mindful eating and meditation, compared with those in the control group?

7.  What risks are associated with having high levels of triglycerides in the blood?

8.  What are the two types of cholesterol described in the story?  How do they differ and what are their impacts?

9.  What are the key elements of the MB-EAT program for people with binge-eating disorder?      

10.  What results did researchers studying the MB-EAT program find, according to the story?

After Reading: 

1.  What aspects of mindful eating do you think you could adopt without much trouble? What aspects might be harder to get used to?

2.  If you were designing an app to encourage mindful eating, what would you have the app do?