Thesis

Chapter 6 174 exercise. For example, the body scan exercise could be supplemented with an exercise component that prompts participants to pay attention to specific hunger sensations and help them distinguish these hunger sensations from emotionally evoked physical sensations as described above. Another possibility would be to include a component in the exercise focused on making individuals with emotional eating aware of and helping them deal with automatic thoughts and judgements about their body or bodily sensations. The moment the user indicates negative associations with a bodily part, being in a vulnerable situation and susceptible to influences, a personalized virtual coach can make just-in-time matching suggestions to the situation with, for example, presenting a positive reframing exercise by applying JITAI’s. Just-in-time adaptive interventions [86-87] could, in conjunction with continuous monitoring and the deployment of Ecological Momentary Assessments (EMA’s) [88- 90], provide the framework for real-time (or near-time) feedback that builds off prior knowledge of individuals in general and data collected previously on an individual. This compiled, dynamic knowledge can be used to provide information, nudges, and interventions when needed or appropriate, tailored to the individual’s needs and context, via mobile technologies [91]. This could help future users to decrease potential negative emotions, such as shame or fear, and uncomfortable attention-related body sensations such as muscle stiffness. Factorial experimental design studies [92] can be performed to explore if the supplementation with these components increases the effectiveness of the body scan exercise within a sample of individuals with emotional eating. It is also quite possible that future factorial experimental design studies display limits to where individuals with emotional eating can effectively be supported by online personalized emotion regulation exercises and highlight where blended interventions with face-to-face support from health care professionals is needed [93]. The importance of context in tailoring The current study aimed to spark advancements in future interventions for individuals with emotional eating by tailoring on individual emotion regulation difficulties. For two of the three groups (group A and C), this is promising, since it was recognized by participants as useful. However, to further improve the tailoring many more factors should be considered. For example, in the current emotion regulation literature, there is an increased focus on acknowledging the importance of the context when people select emotion regulation strategies [94]. In their study Tang and Huang showed that contextual factors, such as location (e.g., home, social or professional setting) and social context (e.g.,

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