Mindfulness seeks to overcome psychological problems by making people much more aware of their thoughts and feelings and how they react to them.

Participants were taught to recognise when they were about to start eating because of their mood.

Lead author Dr Petra Hanson said: ‘Unfortunately a lot of people use food as an emotional pick-me-up.

‘That is not a problem now and then, but if it becomes a systematic way of coping it can really have an impact on someone’s health.’

The team trained people to overcome this by recognising the things that triggered over-eating.

Writing in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, the researchers wrote: ‘Adoption of mindfulness equips the patient with insight and awareness of their own emotional state, and the mental tools to avoid habitual unhealthy eating patterns.’

One of the sessions also covered ‘mindful eating’ – in which participants were taught to eat more slowly, savour every mouthful and concentrate on flavour.

Dr Hanson said: ‘Many people eat in front of the television, they do not talk to their family, they don’t even really notice what they are eating.

‘Advice includes how to become much more aware about what you are eating – such as sitting down at a dinner table.’

The research project, which included 53 people, is the first British study to assess the benefit of mindfulness training on weight loss.

The scientists hope in time it could be adopted for use on the NHS.

‘This research is significant as we have shown that problematic eating behaviour can be improved with mindfulness application,’ Dr Hanson said.

‘We are the first centre in the United Kingdom that created a structured multidisciplinary course incorporating mindfulness and assessed its effectiveness in patients attending obesity clinics.

‘Individuals who completed the course said they were better able to plan meals in advance and felt more confident in self-management of weight loss moving forward.

‘Similar courses can be held in a primary care setting or even developed into digital tools. We hope this approach can be scaled up to reach a wider population.’

Dr Thomas Barber, of the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, another researcher on the paper, said: ‘Mindfulness has huge potential as a strategy for achieving and maintaining good health and wellbeing.

‘With the burgeoning impact of 21st century chronic disease, much of which relates to lifestyle behaviour choices, it is logical that focus should be on enabling the populace to make appropriate lifestyle decisions, and empowering subsequent salutary behaviour change.

‘In the context of obesity and eating–related behaviours, we have demonstrated that mindfulness techniques can do just that.

‘Adoption of mindfulness techniques is scalable to the wider population, and as such this strategy could represent a useful expedient to facilitating healthy eating–related and potentially other lifestyle behaviours, as part of population–wide obesity prevention and management.’