Medicina Comunitária e Educação em Saúde

Abstrato

Can Lifestyle Seminars and Self-Help Groups Contribute to Sustained Weight Loss?

Adolfsson B and Lundqvist-Persson C

There is a worldwide increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity, a serious problem with secondary negative effects on health and life quality. This intervention study was conducted to evaluate whether lifestyle seminars and self-help groups could improve and sustain weight loss. Fifteen people between the ages of 35-73 with a BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2 participated in a 2-step lifestyle intervention program. Step 1 consisted of 12 consecutive weeks of lifestyle seminars with parallel physical activity in a gym. Step 2 consisted of meeting with a self-help group every week for 6 months. We found that sustained weight loss was related to deeper awareness of the emotional reasons for eating, understanding that eating was a means to temporarily reduce unpleasant emotions. This was followed by changed lifestyle. Sustained weight loss was also related to weight loss of more than five percent at the end of the lifestyle seminar but not to the background variables, sex, age, marital status, education or occupational status. The results from this small group of participants indicate that such type of community based intervention could enhance weight reduction and promote maintenance of weight loss which warrants further studies.