Stapleton, P., Roos, T., Mackintosh, G., Sparenburg, E., Sabot, D., Carter, B. · OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine · 2019
Post-intervention, the EFT group showed significant reductions on all measures with moderate to high effect sizes, while the waitlist group showed no significant change; gains were maintained at 6 and 12 months.
If an 8-week online course keeps producing this kind of durable change, it could mean people struggling with food cravings and weight — who often can't afford ongoing coaching or therapy — get a scalable, low-cost program they complete entirely from home, with benefits that last a year rather than fading once the program ends. Part of why that durability is plausible is that tapping is self-administered: once someone finishes the course, there's nothing stopping them from continuing to use the technique on their own, for free, whenever a craving hits.
With gains this durable from a fully online 8-week course, the next step is understanding the biological throughline: does the drop in food cravings correspond to shifts in cortisol or hunger-hormone signaling (ghrelin/leptin) tied to stress-eating, and would continuous glucose monitoring or actigraphy reveal downstream changes in eating patterns and sleep that track with the reported craving reduction? Testing an even larger, fully automated app version with biomarker tracking built into the platform would show whether this durability generalizes beyond a research-supported cohort.
| Design | Randomized trial |
|---|---|
| Participants | 451 people |
| Population | predominantly female adults (96%), average BMI 33.3 (obese range), with daily food cravings |
| Comparison group | waitlist |
| Outcome measures | food cravings, dietary restraint, power of food, weight, somatic symptoms, anxiety, depression |
| Journal | OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine |
| Year | 2019 |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Method | EFT / tapping |
| Publication type | Study / trial |
| Verification | ✓ Confirmed against the primary source |
Stapleton, P., Roos, T., Mackintosh, G., Sparenburg, E., Sabot, D., & Carter, B. (2019). Online Delivery of Emotional Freedom Techniques for Food Cravings and Weight Management. OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine. https://doi.org/10.21926/obm.icm.1904065
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
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