Chapter 1 14 Health care is overburdened and not readily available. The mental health care worker (affiliated to a general practise) usually has 5-7 sessions available [50]. There are long waiting lists for inpatient care, and for mental health care [65-66]. The healthcare sector is experiencing major problems, both financial and organizational [51, 67-68]. There is a large staff shortage so health care workers are no longer able to provide the care according to the standards they are used to. Lastly, health care is to date not able to provide support at the time emotional eaters need it most, i.e. at the time of experiencing cravings. They usually do not experience cravings or binge eating during sessions with a therapist, but may do so late at night when nobody is available to provide counseling. Towards another approach? The summation of coping with a complex problem, in which help must be provided to people who are distant from care, and for whom it is almost impossible to deliver health care in the right time, calls for different and creative solutions. In a world where the accessibility of timely care is no longer feasible, it becomes essential to explore online self-help approaches. Such a facility provides remote support and can assist target groups such as emotional eaters with appropriate feedback at the moment they need it most. The target group should be enticed to deal with their problem independently, without the intervention of care services. After all, if a problem situation typical of emotional eaters arises, they will still have to face it independently. Self-management could be an important component in the treatment of emotional eating behaviour. A promising approach to support emotional eters could be virtual coaching. We suspect that this group may benefit from this type of online remote support [69], because they can independently, and on their own initiative, use personalized support, at a time of their choosing, without the need for physical intervention by a caregiver. Within the privacy of their own home, clients can engage in learning about and becoming more knowledgeable about their condition. To clarify, when we refer to virtual coaching, we are specifically referring to coaching conducted digitally through the use of a virtual assistant (such as a chatbot) in any capacity and at any given time. This can encompass both an online format and a hybrid form. For the purposes of this study, we will focus on the online aspect.
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