Self-Compassion-Based Therapy Helps to Treat Emotional Eating in Obesity

Dr Sweety Agarwal, Consultant Endocrinologist, Apex Superspeciality Clinics and Cloudnine Hospitals, Gurgaon

A 10-week group therapy program built around self-compassion led to real, lasting improvements in mood, shame, and emotional eating for people with severe obesity.

People with severe obesity (body mass index (BMI) of 40 or higher) often deal with more than just weight. Many also struggle with eating disorders, depression, shame, self-criticism, and feeling inferior to others. Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) was created specifically for people who carry high levels of shame and self-criticism. The idea behind it is to help people build self-compassion, which is seen as a healthy way to manage difficult emotions. Researchers wanted to see whether a group version of this therapy could actually help people living with severe obesity feel better psychologically, not just physically.

To test this, researchers ran a single-center randomized controlled trial with 91 participants. Everyone kept receiving usual care, which included dietary advice, a visit with a Consultant Endocrinologist who could prescribe medication if needed, and an eight-week lifestyle program. On top of that, 45 participants were also placed in a group CFT program: ten weekly two-hour sessions. The other 46 participants received usual care alone. Researchers measured psychological outcomes three times: before treatment, right after treatment ended, and again three months later.

The group that received CFT showed statistically and clinically significant improvements compared to the usual-care group. These improvements showed up across self-compassion, self-coldness, mood, shame, emotional eating, self-criticism, social comparison, and submissive behavior. Importantly, these gains weren't temporary. When researchers checked back in three months after the program ended, the improvements were still there.

The study concluded that group-based CFT looks like an effective way to ease psychological distress in people living with severe obesity.

(Reference: Hynes M, Finucane FM, Collins C, O’Brien T, McAnena O, O’Shea G, Pilch M, McGuire BE. Compassion-focused group therapy improves depression, emotional eating, self-criticism and shame in people living with severe obesity: A single-centre, examiner-blind randomized controlled trial. Plos one. 2026 Mar 25;21(3):e0342744.)