Research

Adherence

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and mindfulness-based interventions produce significant weight loss effects, whereas other mindfulness approaches primarily improve psychological health and eating-related factors without necessarily reducing weight.

If you are trying to lose weight, look for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) rather than generic mindfulness meditation. ACT focuses on committing to valued behaviors (like healthy eating) despite discomfort, which has been shown to significantly reduce weight, whereas general mindfulness may just improve your mood or eating awareness without dropping pounds.

ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
ACT produced significant effect only in reducing weight, while mindfulness approaches produced important effects on different psychological health variables and eating-related factors
Gianluca Castelnuovo et al. · Psychology Research and Behavior Management · 2017

Why this rating

Based on a 'recent meta-analysis' cited in the review, but the review itself notes 'further high-quality research... are encouraged'.

Source

Cognitive behavioral therapy to aid weight loss in obese patients: current perspectives

Gianluca Castelnuovo et al. · Psychology Research and Behavior Management · 2017

DOI 10.2147/prbm.s113278

narrative_reviewCited 186×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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