Comparing the Effectiveness of Body Appreciation Training and Self-Healing Training for Food Cravings and Weight Control Self-Efficacy among Overweight Women

Food cravings and weight control self-efficacy are psychological issues that can initially and steadily lead to the phenomenon of overweight. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of body appreciation training and self-healing training for food cravings and weight control self-efficacy among overweight women. The method included pretest posttest quasi-experimental design with control group and quarterly follow-up period. Among overweight women referring to control and weight loss centers in Isfahan, 45 were purposed selected and randomly assigned to three groups. The first experimental group participated in 14 weekly 90-minute sessions of body appreciation training and the second experimental group received 14 sessions of 90 minutes and weekly self-healing training. Also, the control group did not receive any intervention during this period. The research instruments were food cravings and weight-bearing self-efficacy questionnaires. The results of repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that in the variables of food cravings and weight control self-efficacy, there was a significant difference between body appreciation training group and self-healing training group with control group. However, there was no significant difference between body appreciation training group and self-healing training group. According to the results, body appreciation training and self-healing training can be used to reduce food cravings and increase self-efficacy related to weight control in overweight women. IntroductionBeing overweight is one of the common disorders that not only creates physical problems but also leads to psychological challenges for the individual (Sasani et al., 2020). A review of the related literature indicates that making efforts to reduce food cravings and weight control self-efficacy can significantly enhance the effectiveness of nutrition and training programs. (Amirizadeh et al., 2016). Given that both of these approaches highlight the role of body appreciation and self-healing in changing the individuals’ attitudes about their self and coping strategies; the present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of body appreciation training and self-healing training for food cravings and weight control self-efficacy among overweight women. Specifically, the current study aimed to find whether there were any meaningful differences between the effect of body appreciation training and self-healing training on food cravings and weight control self-efficacy among overweight women. MethodThis study employed a pretest posttest quasi experimental design with a control group and a three-month follow-up. To this end, the researchers purposefully selected 45 women referring to the wight control centers in Isfahan, Iran in 2021. The participants were randomly assigned to three experimental and control groups. The research instruments included Mol et al.'s food cravings questionnaire (2014) and Clark et al.'s weight-bearing self-efficacy questionnaire (1991). After the participants received the pretest, the first experimental group received in 14 sessions 90-minute sessions of body appreciation training and the second experimental group received 14 sessions of 90 minutes and weekly self-healing training. It should be noted that the control group did not receive any intervention during this period. The participants in the three groups responded to the same questionnaires at the end of the interventions and three months later. To analyze the data, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and chi square tests were used to check for homogeneity, and repeated measures ANOVA and Bonferroni post hoc tests were used to test the research hypotheses. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 24. ResultsTable 1 presents the descriptive statistics related to food cravings and weight control self-efficacy.Table 1. Mean and Standard Deviation of Research Variables in Three Research Groups in Three Time StagesBody appreciationSelf-healingControl MeanSDMeanSDMeanSDStageVariable46.204.4446.133.7946.73 PretestFood cravings43.402.5541.334.8247.402.32Posttest 42.202.9842.203.7046.932.05Follow-up 24.402.7423.532.2323.802.70PretestWight control self-efficacy32.03.0931.133.3124.862.09posttest31.463.2030.03.4422.62.41Follow-up Moreover, Table 2 presents the results of repeated measures ANOVA for within group, within group interaction, and between group factor for the research variables. 47 Table 2. Summary Of Results of Analysis of Variance with Repeated MeasurementsSum of squaresFDMean SquaresFSigetaPowerFactor Variable 179.511289.75612.237.0001.225.988Time Food cravings 365.7332182.8678.559.001.290.959Group 145.689436.4224.996.001.191.924Tame X Group 720.3112360.15662.226.0001.5971.00Time Weigh control self-efficacy 755.6002387.80030.577.0001.5931.00Group 362.489490.62215.677.0001.4271.00Tame X Group The results indicated that time (F= 21.33, p > .001), group (F= 8.55, p > .001), and time-group interaction (F= 4.96, p > .001), factors were significant for wight control self-efficacy. The meaningful effects for time and group membership that there were significant differences between the three groups in terms of wight control self-efficacy and food cravings. In addition, the results related to food cravings indicated that time (F = 62.26, p > .001), group (F = 30.57, p > .001), and time-group interaction (F = 15.66, p > .001) factors were significant for this variable. Table 3. Bonferroni Test Results for Two-By-Two Comparison of Research GroupsMean differencesigTreatment groupGroup Factor Variable .733.456Self-healingBody appreciation Group Food cravings 3.06.003ControlBody appreciation 3.80.0001ControlSelf-healing -2.84.004PretestPretest Time -2.980.01Follow-up -.131Follow-upPosttest 1.067.165Self-healingBody appreciation Group Wight loss self-efficacy 5.333.0001ControlBody appreciation 4.467.0001ControlSelf-healing -.62.05PosttestPretest Time -.67.005Follow-up -.24.08Follow-upPosttest As shown in Table 3, the results of Bonferroni post hoc test indicated that there were significant differences between self-healing and body appreciation groups with control group in terms of food cravings and weight control self-efficacy (p >.05), while there were no differences between self-healing and body appreciation groups. DiscussionThe purpose of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of body appreciation training and self-healing training for food cravings and weight control self-efficacy among overweight women. It seems that the results of the current study indicated that body appreciation and self-healing training have significant effects on food cravings among overweight women and both led to lower food cravings. The results of this study are in line with the study by Homan and Tilka (2018) who reported similar findings. One possible explanation for the effect of body appreciation might be that this type of training employs positive psychology and identifying weaknesses and strengths to help developing positive attitudes about body, higher body acceptance, and protecting body by preventing unreal expectations.In regards to the effectiveness of self-healing, the findings of the present study were in line with the results of Zarean and Latifi (2021), Irani et al. (2021), Soltani et al. (2020). Moreover, it can be argued that self-healing training, due to its focus on identifying and resolving negative memories and by controlling external and internal triggers, could prevent food cravings.Moreover, the findings indicated that self-healing, similar to body appreciation, positively influenced weight control self-efficacy and led to weight control. It can be mentioned that this training method aimed to teach women to re-evaluate the messages they received about themselves and empower them to reject the negative ones (Bailey et al., 2015). This way, the individuals build a different relationship with their body and enables them to create emotional and cognitive changes; therefore, they have higher self-efficacy in regards to their weight control.The results of the study should be generalized with caution because the sample was limited to women in Isfahan. It is also suggested that future studies use the same training methods in people who aim to have cosmetic surgeries or have negative attitudes about their shape and face in different contexts. Ethical ConsiderationCompliance with Ethical Guidelines: articipation was voluntary—the participants were informed that they could withdraw from the study at any time. All ethical issues like informed consent and confidentiality of participants’ identifications were compiled based on ethical committee of Islamic Azad University of Isfahan (Khomeinishahr).Authors’ Contributions: First author (Z. F) contributed to the conception and design of the study, as well as the acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the article, and writing the entire manuscript. Second author (Z. L) contributed to developing the study design and to final approval of the version to be submitted. Both authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest for this study.Funding: This study was conducted with no financial support.Acknowledgment: The authors thank all participants in the study. *. Corresponding author