The Tapping Evidence Base
Anxiety · Weight & Food Cravings

Trial of EFT in overweight/obese adults with elevated anxiety (as tabulated in Clond 2016 / Nelms & Castel 2016)

Stapleton, P., et al. · 2013

Randomized trial👥 96 participants⚖️ vs. waitlist📈 Cohen's 0.27 (small)Moderate rigor✓ Source-checked📍 Australia
In plain English. This trial gave 96 overweight adults with anxiety either four tapping sessions or no treatment yet. Anxiety improved slightly more in the tapping group, but the difference was small and could plausibly be due to chance in this sample size.

What they found

Cohen's = 0.27
a small effect · 95% CI −0.12–0.66 · on anxiety symptoms
smallmoderatelarge
00.50.82.5

Four EFT sessions (n=49) vs waitlist (n=47); anxiety difference d=0.27 (95% CI −0.12–0.66, p=0.177), not statistically significant in Clond's table. The same sample's depression outcome (N=45 analyzed) is reported in Nelms & Castel 2016 as d=0.37 (−21% symptom change).

How the study worked

Who took partoverweight/obese adults with elevated anxiety (>50% on SA-45) (n=96)
What they didIn a randomized controlled trial, participants were randomly assigned to receive tapping or a comparison condition, then measured and compared.
Compared withwaitlist
Measured withSA-45

💡 Where this could help

Depression outcomes in this same sample did show a modest improvement, so if larger trials confirm a real anxiety benefit too, it could give people managing both weight and anxiety together — a combination often treated as two separate problems — one approach that addresses both at once. Because that one approach is self-administered, a person wouldn't need to coordinate two separate specialists or two separate copays to get at both.

🔬 What to study next

Since the anxiety result here didn't reach significance while depression in the same sample showed a modest gain, a larger trial should track objective stress and metabolic markers — cortisol, inflammatory markers linked to both weight and anxiety — to see whether a real physiological effect exists that self-report alone isn't picking up. Testing more than four sessions, or combining tapping with a standard weight-management or anxiety program, would also clarify whether dose was simply too low to detect a true effect.

The full record

DesignRandomized trial
Participants96 people
Populationoverweight/obese adults with elevated anxiety (>50% on SA-45)
Comparison groupwaitlist
Effect sizeCohen's d (EFT vs waitlist) = 0.27 (95% CI −0.12–0.66) — on anxiety symptoms
Outcome measuresSA-45
JournalOriginal publication venue not confirmed (indexed via Clond 2016 Table 1/2 and Nelms & Castel 2016 Table 4)
Year2013
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
MethodEFT / tapping
Publication typeStudy / trial
Verification✓ Confirmed against the primary source
Verification note. No numeric correction made. The primary paper's own published SA-45 anxiety-subscale ANOVA used a smaller completer subsample (n=19, F(2,36)=1.46, p=.24, non-significant) rather than the n=49-EFT/n=47-waitlist, d=0.27 (CI −0.12–0.66, p=.177) comparison attributed here to Clond 2016/Nelms & Castel 2016's tabulation. Both indicate a small, non-significant anxiety effect, but the exact statistic could not be independently re-derived from the primary paper's own tables in this pass, so the existing (already disclosed as secondary-source) effect_size value was left unchanged rather than invented or altered.

Read the original study →

Cite this study

APA

Stapleton, P., & et al. (2013). Trial of EFT in overweight/obese adults with elevated anxiety (as tabulated in Clond 2016 / Nelms & Castel 2016). https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/573532

This record is part of the Tapping Evidence Base — an openly-sourced, fully-referenced directory of the research on EFT/tapping. Explore more studies on Anxiety · Weight & Food Cravings

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THE TAPPING EVIDENCE BASE Anxiety Cohen's 0.27 small effect WHAT THEY FOUND Four EFT sessions (n=49) vs waitlist (n=47);anxiety difference d=0.27 (95% CI−0.12–0.66, p=0.177), not… Randomized trial · 96 participants Stapleton · 2013 · evidence.thetappingsolution.com