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Thursday, May 01, 2003The average weight loss among Weight Watchers participants "is not very much in comparison to what people hope they will lose, or what people need to lose in order to reach the desired, svelte self," study author Dr. Stanley Heshka told Reuters Health. These findings suggest that people who need to lose a significant amount of weight fairly quickly for medical reasons may want to opt out of Weight Watchers and similarly structured programs, said Heshka, who is based at the New York Obesity Research Center, St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. In the program, participants attend weekly meetings and receive guidelines for exercise and how to pick the healthy foods and portions. To be fair, the article goes on to point out that Weight Watchers is just as successful as any other weight loss program, and in fact superior to doing it on your own, but the overall impression one gets from it is that Weight Watchers doesn’t work. The study in fact found that people on Weight Watchers lost more weight: At 2 years, 150 participants (71%) in the commercial group and 159 (75%) in the self-help group completed the study. In the intent-to-treat analysis, mean (SD) weight loss of participants in the commercial group was greater than in the self-help group at 1 year (-4.3 [6.1] kg vs -1.3 [6.1] kg, respectively; P<.001) and at 2 years (-2.9 [6.5] kg vs -0.2 [6.5] kg, respectively; P<.001). Waist circumference (P = .003) and body mass index (P<.001) decreased more in the commercial group. Changes in blood pressure, lipids, glucose, and insulin levels were related to changes in weight in both groups, but between-group differences in biological parameters were mainly nonsignificant by year 2. The structured commercial weight loss program provided modest weight loss but more than self-help over a 2-year period. The truth is that losing weight and keeping it off is extremely difficult. It requires a degree of obsession to detail (counting calories) that’s difficult to sustain. Quitting tobacco or alcohol is easy in comparison. It isn’t that difficult to avoid cigarettes or spirits, although you might have to give up social outlets to do so. It’s impossible to avoid food completely, so the temptation to overeat is always there. That’s not to say that it can’t be done; just that it is, in some ways, a Herculean task. posted by Sydney on 5/01/2003 08:47:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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