Nienke Jonker receives NWO-XS grant for research on intervention to promote healthy behaviour

Nienke Jonker has been awarded a NWO-XS grant from the NWO Open competition - SGW to develop a new intervention to foster a healthy lifestyle. The intervention consists of a new application of the so-called Episodic Future Thinking (EFT) technique.

Overweight and obesity pose major threats to both people's health and quality of life. Although many people try to change their behaviour by eating less and healthier and exercising more, it turns out to be very difficult to maintain this behavioural change.

Jonker: ‘The Episodic Future Thinking technique involves asking people to project themselves into the future and to describe a self-chosen, planned event in detail and write it down as a story. Research has shown that this technique can be effective in improving self-restraint in the short term. However, the manipulation in its current form does not seem strong enough to bring about long-term changes.'

Therefore, Jonker wants to improve the EFT manipulation in two aspects. First, she is going to align the content of the story with the participants' personal long-term goals. The objective in the field of a healthy lifestyle (e.g. to increase daily steps) will be linked to the planned event. This merged story is written out by the participant. Jonker: ‘You can think of a story in which the participant says he feels very proud because during the walks with friends on holiday, the walking pace is no longer a problem at all because in the run-up to that holiday he has already moved so much.’ In addition, Jonker wants to test the effect of EFT in situations where participants have not been confronted with their thoughts about the future shortly beforehand and it is therefore no longer ‘top of mind’.

By the end of the project, Jonker hopes to have developed an intervention that can be used to facilitate lifestyle changes that also work in the long term.

More information:

• Profile page Nienke Jonker