ECO-EAT
This project investigates the relationship between environmental concerns and eating behaviors, both dysfunctional (eating disorder symptomatology and orthorexia nervosa) and functional (healthy and sustainable), in the general Italian population and in a subgroup of patients with eating disorders. Additionally, it aims to validate in Italian a psychometric tool designed to measure environmental concerns related to food choices (“Eating-Related Eco-concern Questionnaire”), considered a risk factor for the development of eating disorders.
PROJECT IMPACT
The results of this project may open innovative perspectives for public health campaigns and environmental policies. The research aims primarily to examine how two specific individual predispositions—mindfulness and nature connectedness —can increase in response to specific inputs, such as participation in an experimental protocol of mindfulness-based trekking in natural environments. Secondly, we aim to demonstrate how increased levels of mindfulness and nature connectedness promote, on the one hand, greater personal psychological well-being and, on the other, the adoption of healthy and sustainable dietary choices. These evidences therefore pave the way for the use of Mindfulness & Nature-based interventions to promote pro-environmental behaviors and, more generally, confirms the appropriateness of a new eco-centric vision, in which human well-being is considered inextricably linked to the well-being of entire planet Earth.