MIND YOUR HEART: THE FEASIBILITY AND EFFECTS OF A MINDFUL EATING AND DASH DIET EDUCATION PROGRAM TO ADDRESS HYPERTENSION AND DIET ADHERENCE IN WORKING ADULTS

The DASH diet is efficacious in reducing blood pressure, but dietary adherence is notoriously poor. Workplace health promotion programs offer health initiatives, such as diet and nutrition education to prevent chronic disease but results are rarely lasting. Mindful eating may increase adaptive behaviors that improve long-term dietary habits but has rarely been combined with diet education. The Mind Your Heart (MYH) curriculum combined DASH diet education and mindful eating tailored for adults and delivered asynchronous through an e-learning platform. The purposes of this project were 1) to examine the fit for implementing DASH diet education and mindful eating program in a workplace delivered via an e-learning platform system and 2) to evaluate whether a DASH diet education program with a mindful eating program improves DASH diet adherence compared to DASH diet education alone. In the first phase, a mixed 19 participants (M=42.2612.19 years; 79% female; 16% non-White) were recruited to examine the fit of MYH available through an e-learning platform. In phase two, 30 full-time working adults (M=47.10±12.22; 93.3% female; 13.3% non-white) were enrolled in a quasi-experimental, pseudo-randomized controlled trial to examine the effects of mindful eating on diet adherence and blood pressure. In phase one, participants’ state mindfulness improved over 3 weeks (t(15)=3.56;p<.01) and was associated perceived usefulness (r = .58; p<.05) and improved attitude (rs = .71, p< .01) of MYH but inversely related to perceived susceptibility to disease (r = –.50; p<.05). Participants identified evidence-based nutrition tools (MyPlate, nutrition labels, etc.) and mindful eating content as useful, although mindful eating was more difficult to apply to daily life. In phase two, the DASH education with mindful eating group improved diet quality in saturated fat (Z= 2.24; p<.05; r= .41), calcium (Z= 2.33; p<.05; r= .43), fiber (Z= 1.90; p<.05; r= .35), and overall DASH diet score (Z= 1.79; p<.05; r= .33). Mindful eating may be an effective behavioral tool for improving DASH diet quality, particularly for fiber, saturated fat, and calcium. Together, these studies provide insight into the acceptability of asynchronous delivery and beneficial use of mindful eating as a nonpharmacological intervention to improve dietary adherence.