Food for Thought: A Randomised Controlled Trial of Emotional Freedom Techniques and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in the Treatment of Food Cravings

Randomized trial👥 83 participants⚖️ vs. cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)Higher rigor✓ Source-checked📍 Australia

In plain English. Eighty-three adults who were overweight and struggled with food cravings tried either eight weeks of tapping or eight weeks of standard cognitive behavioral therapy. Both approaches worked about equally well — cravings eased, and people felt less controlled by food — with results holding up at 6 and 12 months. Neither approach produced a measurable drop in body weight itself, so tapping looks like a real option for craving control, not a weight-loss guarantee on its own.

What they found

people took part

83 overweight/obese adults completed an 8-week EFT or CBT program; both treatments produced comparable, clinically meaningful reductions in food cravings, responsiveness to food cues, and improved dietary restraint (normalizing to non-clinical community levels), though neither produced a significant reduction in BMI.

How the study worked

Who took partadults who were overweight or obese with food cravings (n=83)

What they didIn a randomized controlled trial, participants were randomly assigned to receive tapping or a comparison condition, then measured and compared.

Compared withcognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

Measured withfood cravings, power of food scale, dietary restraint, BMI

💡 Where this could help

Imagine someone who feels like food controls them more than they control it — reaching for a snack not from hunger but from an urge they can't quite name. If tapping continues to match CBT here, it suggests a self-taught alternative to formal craving therapy — something practiced alone, free, for people who can't access or afford CBT.

🔬 What to study next

Since EFT matched CBT here without shifting BMI, a good next step is tracking whether the craving and dietary-restraint improvements are accompanied by changes in appetite-regulating hormones or brain reward-region activity in response to food cues, to understand what's actually changing biologically even when weight itself doesn't move. Following participants past the 8-week endpoint would also clarify whether the psychological gains around cravings hold up over the same durability window seen in later 2-year follow-up work on this same program.

The full record

Design	Randomized trial
Participants	83 people
Population	adults who were overweight or obese with food cravings
Comparison group	cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
Outcome measures	food cravings, power of food scale, dietary restraint, BMI
Journal	Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being
Year	2016
Country	Australia
Language	English
Method	EFT / tapping
Publication type	Study / trial
Verification	✓ Confirmed against the primary source

Read the original study →

Cite this study

APA

Stapleton, P., Bannatyne, A.J., Urzi, K.-C., Porter, B., & Sheldon, T. (2016). Food for Thought: A Randomised Controlled Trial of Emotional Freedom Techniques and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in the Treatment of Food Cravings. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being. https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.12070

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 Weight & Food Cravings