We make significant life changes in a social context. Here’s an experiment which underlines the fact, presented at the American Heart Association’s Conference on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It indicated that personal follow-up can impact how well people retain the benefits of, in this case, weight loss.
“We know how to help people lose weight in a healthy way, but we know very little about how to help them to keep the weight off,” said Laura P. Svetkey, M.D, lead author of the study and professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. “This study is the longest and largest to test strategies for long-term weight loss maintenance, and it suggests that long-term weight control is an achievable goal.”
- from the press release in Eurekalert
In a separate press release:
“It’s almost a given that you can achieve initial weight loss with a variety of methods, but what happens afterwards doesn’t get as much attention,” says Lawrence Appel, M.D., professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Few studies have focused on how to prevent weight regain, which carries frustration and health risks, he says.
I personally find this quite amazing. I suppose the weight loss industry is making huge money from people coming back again and again to lose the weight they keep regaining, but it’s hardly as if there’d be a shortage of overweight people if major effort went into preventing the frustrating cycle of weight regain.
photo credit: colros
There were two experimental groups, one which had personal contact with expert counselors by phone for 5 to 15 minutes a month, and face to face every fourth month for 45 to 60 minutes over the 30 months of the trial; the other logged on to what is described as an “interactive website”. The report of the study states:
The interactive technology–based intervention included unlimited access to a Web site designed to support weight loss maintenance. Interactive features allowed participants to set personal goals and action plans for the next week and to graph personal data over time. Modules addressed problem solving and motivation, and a bulletin board facilitated social support but did not provide in-person counseling.
If the participants didn’t log on at least once a week, they were followed up first by automated emails, secondly by automated phone calls, and only if there was no response to these did anyone contact them personally. The experiment was comparing in-person intervention to electronically-mediated intervention (to a control group who had to fend for themselves), and found that the in-person intervention had a small but significant benefit in helping keep weight off.
What I’d like to see in follow-up studies is a focus on specific interventions which work better, and a comparison of an electronically-mediated group with expert moderators versus face-to-face groups with expert moderators. As designed, the experiment doesn’t necessarily show that face-to-face works better than electronic; it could be showing that having interaction with an expert works better than not having interaction with an expert (even if you have access to supportive material and to others who are trying to make the same life changes). I’d also like to see if the effect generalizes to other kinds of lifestyle change, like giving up smoking.
I follow up my clients by phone to check on their progress at one week, one month, three months and a year after their first appointment, which seems to help both me and them. This study suggests that personal contact like this is beneficial and should be part of any behavioral change intervention.
Technorati Tags: behavior+modification, behavior+therapy, weight+loss, weight+regain, health, diet, nutrition, lifehacks, psychology, research, personal+change, habits, lifestyle, electronic+mediation, online
Related posts:
- Why we struggle with food, and how we can change our eating behaviorBefore I leave the topic of nutrition (for now) and...
- 10 Ways to Cultivate a Positive HabitHabits can be our enemies – but they can also...
- The nutrient-rich way to positive eatingA key part of my Positive Eating approach to weight...
- Slim chances for weight lossBack to our regularly scheduled program of original content shortly,...
- World Diabetes DayWorld Diabetes Day (14 November) reminds us of the the...