The exploration and evaluation of the feasibility and acceptability of a religious weight management programme

Background: Obesity treatment is a global priority. Current approaches to treating obesity have demonstrated good efficacy but the obesity epidemic continues to escalate. Holistic approaches which include a religious element are a promising intervention within obesity, as demonstrated by research conducted in the USA, but are yet to be explored in the UK. Methods: A mixed-methods feasibility trial with two embedded qualitative studies to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of a 3-month Christian, church-based, intuitive-eating programme. Results: A total of 18 participants were recruited, attendance during the programme peaked and troughed. It was feasible to recruit and train lay facilitators to deliver intervention sessions. Qualitative evidence exploring facilitators' experiences showed they were able to facilitate the sessions, but facilitating was not always easy. Facilitators experienced challenges associated with managing difficult group members, and the range of issues that can arise during group discussions. Qualitative evidence exploring participants' experiences showed the two novel components; Christian spirituality and intuitive eating took participants on a journey. None of the participants had ever thought of bringing God into their eating, but as participants started surrendering their struggles with food to God, their faith became an invaluable resource for their weight loss journey. Similarly, the intuitive eating component was initially difficult to understand. However, as participants learned to incorporate the principles of intuitive eating into their daily lives, the negative emotions associated with food were reduced. Post-intervention all participants felt ready to move forward into the next stage of their weight loss journey. 10 Significant improvements were observed in mental well-being, anxiety, depression, quality-of-life, pain/discomfort uncontrolled-eating, emotional-eating, cognitivere strained-eating, intuitive-eating and BMI post-intervention. By 6-month followup there was a return to baseline levels for weight, BMI, energy intake, and a partial reversal in uncontrolled eating, emotional eating, cognitive restrained eating, anxiety, depression, mental well-being and spiritual well-being. However, improvements in intuitive eating were fully sustained at this time point and total fat, saturated fat and sugar intake had reduced further. Conclusion: It was feasible to recruit, deliver and evaluate Taste & See in a UK church, with lay volunteers. The intervention was acceptable to both facilitators and participants and qualitative evidence showed good engagement with the content. The clinical outcomes were positive but a larger RCT is needed to demonstrate efficacy.