November 2005 -- People who are trying to either lose weight or avoid gaining do better by weighing themselves daily, according to a new study in the December issue of Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
The research team evaluated self-weighing practices of more than 3,000 people participating in either a weight-loss or a weight-gain prevention program. The study's key finding: �Higher weighing frequency was associated with greater 24-month weight loss or less weight gain.�
When people weigh themselves daily, �something is going on. It�s independent of things such as diet and exercise, so it may be worth recommending,� said lead researcher Jennifer Linde, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. �If people see that their number has gone up they may realize it's time to do something. It's probably easier to make that small correction,� Linde said, than to try to compensate after gaining a lot of weight.
The first study group consisted of 1,800 obese or overweight adults enrolled in a weight-loss program. Participants all had a body mass index (BMI) of at least 27. They were randomly divided into three groups: a telephone-based weight-loss intervention, a mail-based weight loss intervention or a usual-care control condition. The researchers weighed them every six months for two years.
�The average 12-month and 24-month weight losses of 1.3 and 2 BMI units respectively � were in the clinically significant range,� reported the researchers.
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The other group consisted of 1,226 overweight adults � BMI above 25 � enrolled in a weight�gain prevention program. They were randomly divided into either an educational weight-control intervention, the same educational intervention plus a reward for returning self-monitoring postcards or a minimal-contact control condition. The researchers weighed the participants at the study's outset and every year for three years.
For the weight-gain prevention group, the researchers found that �the control group decreased weighing over time and both intervention groups increased weighing over time.� Even though weight maintenance was the goal for this group, daily weighing also led to weight loss at the 12- and 24-months time points.
Well-known behavioral programs such as Weight-Watchers(TM) have not widely recommended that followers weigh themselves daily; instead, many programs recommend weekly self-weighing. Public health recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control do not include self-weighing at all.
The researchers say their results suggest that �clinical as well as public health recommendations for regular weighing should be considered.�
�It is not surprising that daily weighing correlates with success � people who do well like the feedback,� says Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders. �I suspect it helps people who are succeeding and is a problem for people who are not losing or losing slowly, but the only way to tell is with a randomized trial that assigns people to different weighing schedules.�
Linde JA, et al. Self-weighing in weight gain prevention and weight loss trials. Annals of Behavioral Medicine 30(3), 2005.
Source: HBNS
