Obesity research-impossible to lose weight long term?
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Beet_Girl
Posts: 102
A friend forwarded me this article from CBC news. Has anyone seen this or read the study? Thoughts? Link is here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/obesity-research-confirms-long-term-weight-loss-almost-impossible-1.2663585?utm_content=bufferc02ff&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Obesity research confirms long-term weight loss almost impossible
There's a disturbing truth that is emerging from the science of obesity. After years of study, it's becoming apparent that it's nearly impossible to permanently lose weight.
As incredible as it sounds, that's what the evidence is showing. For psychologist Traci Mann, who has spent 20 years running an eating lab at the University of Minnesota, the evidence is clear. "It couldn't be easier to see," she says. "Long-term weight loss happens to only the smallest minority of people."
We all think we know someone in that rare group. They become the legends — the friend of a friend, the brother-in-law, the neighbour — the ones who really did it.
But if we check back after five or 10 years, there's a good chance they will have put the weight back on. Only about five per cent of people who try to lose weight ultimately succeed, according to the research. Those people are the outliers, but we cling to their stories as proof that losing weight is possible.
"Those kinds of stories really keep the myth alive," says University of Alberta professor Tim Caulfield, who researches and writes about health misconceptions. "You have this confirmation bias going on where people point to these very specific examples as if it's proof. But in fact those are really exceptions."
Our biology taunts us, by making short-term weight loss fairly easy. But the weight creeps back, usually after about a year, and it keeps coming back until the original weight is regained or worse.
This has been tested in randomized controlled trials where people have been separated into groups and given intense exercise and nutrition counselling.
Even in those highly controlled experimental settings, the results show only minor sustained weight loss.
When Traci Mann analyzed all of the randomized control trials on long-term weight loss, she discovered that after two years the average amount lost was only one kilogram, or about two pounds, from the original weight.
Tiptoeing around the truth
So if most scientists know that we can't eat ourselves thin, that the lost weight will ultimately bounce back, why don't they say so?
Tim Caulfield says his fellow obesity academics tend to tiptoe around the truth. "You go to these meetings and you talk to researchers, you get a sense there is almost a political correctness around it, that we don't want this message to get out there," he said.
"You'll be in a room with very knowledgeable individuals, and everyone in the room will know what the data says and still the message doesn't seem to get out."
In part, that's because it's such a harsh message. "You have to be careful about the stigmatizing nature of that kind of image," Caulfield says. "That's one of the reasons why this myth of weight loss lives on."
Health experts are also afraid people will abandon all efforts to exercise and eat a nutritious diet — behaviour that is important for health and longevity — even if it doesn't result in much weight loss.
Traci Mann says the emphasis should be on measuring health, not weight. "You should still eat right, you should still exercise, doing healthy stuff is still healthy," she said. "It just doesn't make you thin."
We are biological machines
But eating right to improve health alone isn't a strong motivator. The research shows that most people are willing to exercise and limit caloric intake if it means they will look better. But if they find out their weight probably won't change much, they tend to lose motivation.
That raises another troubling question. If diets don't result in weight loss, what does? At this point the grim answer seems to be that there is no known cure for obesity, except perhaps surgically shrinking the stomach.
Research suggests bariatric surgery can induce weight loss in the extremely obese, improving health and quality of life at the same time. But most people will still be obese after the surgery. Plus, there are risky side effects, and many will end up gaining some of that weight back.
If you listen closely you will notice that obesity specialists are quietly adjusting the message through a subtle change in language.
These days they're talking about weight maintenance or "weight management" rather than "weight loss."
It's a shift in emphasis that reflects the emerging reality. Just last week the headlines announced the world is fatter than it has ever been, with 2.1 billion people now overweight or obese, based on an analysis published in the online issue of the British medical journal The Lancet.
Researchers are divided about why weight gain seems to be irreversible, probably a combination of biological and social forces. "The fundamental reason," Caulfield says, "is that we are very efficient biological machines. We evolved not to lose weight. We evolved to keep on as much weight as we possibly can."
Lost in all of the noise about dieting and obesity is the difficult concept of prevention, of not putting weight on in the first place.
The Lancet study warned that more than one in five kids in developed countries are now overweight or obese. Statistics Canada says close to a third of Canadian kids under 17 are overweight or obese. And in a world flooded with food, with enormous economic interest in keeping people eating that food, what is required to turn this ship around is daunting.
"An appropriate rebalancing of the primal needs of humans with food availability is essential," University of Oxford epidemiologist Klim McPherson wrote in a Lancet commentary following last week's study. But to do that, he suggested, "would entail curtailing many aspects of production and marketing for food industries."
Perhaps, though, the emerging scientific reality should also be made clear, so we can navigate this obesogenic world armed with the stark truth — that we are held hostage to our biology, which is adapted to gain weight, an old evolutionary advantage that has become a dangerous metabolic liability.
Obesity research confirms long-term weight loss almost impossible
There's a disturbing truth that is emerging from the science of obesity. After years of study, it's becoming apparent that it's nearly impossible to permanently lose weight.
As incredible as it sounds, that's what the evidence is showing. For psychologist Traci Mann, who has spent 20 years running an eating lab at the University of Minnesota, the evidence is clear. "It couldn't be easier to see," she says. "Long-term weight loss happens to only the smallest minority of people."
We all think we know someone in that rare group. They become the legends — the friend of a friend, the brother-in-law, the neighbour — the ones who really did it.
But if we check back after five or 10 years, there's a good chance they will have put the weight back on. Only about five per cent of people who try to lose weight ultimately succeed, according to the research. Those people are the outliers, but we cling to their stories as proof that losing weight is possible.
"Those kinds of stories really keep the myth alive," says University of Alberta professor Tim Caulfield, who researches and writes about health misconceptions. "You have this confirmation bias going on where people point to these very specific examples as if it's proof. But in fact those are really exceptions."
Our biology taunts us, by making short-term weight loss fairly easy. But the weight creeps back, usually after about a year, and it keeps coming back until the original weight is regained or worse.
This has been tested in randomized controlled trials where people have been separated into groups and given intense exercise and nutrition counselling.
Even in those highly controlled experimental settings, the results show only minor sustained weight loss.
When Traci Mann analyzed all of the randomized control trials on long-term weight loss, she discovered that after two years the average amount lost was only one kilogram, or about two pounds, from the original weight.
Tiptoeing around the truth
So if most scientists know that we can't eat ourselves thin, that the lost weight will ultimately bounce back, why don't they say so?
Tim Caulfield says his fellow obesity academics tend to tiptoe around the truth. "You go to these meetings and you talk to researchers, you get a sense there is almost a political correctness around it, that we don't want this message to get out there," he said.
"You'll be in a room with very knowledgeable individuals, and everyone in the room will know what the data says and still the message doesn't seem to get out."
In part, that's because it's such a harsh message. "You have to be careful about the stigmatizing nature of that kind of image," Caulfield says. "That's one of the reasons why this myth of weight loss lives on."
Health experts are also afraid people will abandon all efforts to exercise and eat a nutritious diet — behaviour that is important for health and longevity — even if it doesn't result in much weight loss.
Traci Mann says the emphasis should be on measuring health, not weight. "You should still eat right, you should still exercise, doing healthy stuff is still healthy," she said. "It just doesn't make you thin."
We are biological machines
But eating right to improve health alone isn't a strong motivator. The research shows that most people are willing to exercise and limit caloric intake if it means they will look better. But if they find out their weight probably won't change much, they tend to lose motivation.
That raises another troubling question. If diets don't result in weight loss, what does? At this point the grim answer seems to be that there is no known cure for obesity, except perhaps surgically shrinking the stomach.
Research suggests bariatric surgery can induce weight loss in the extremely obese, improving health and quality of life at the same time. But most people will still be obese after the surgery. Plus, there are risky side effects, and many will end up gaining some of that weight back.
If you listen closely you will notice that obesity specialists are quietly adjusting the message through a subtle change in language.
These days they're talking about weight maintenance or "weight management" rather than "weight loss."
It's a shift in emphasis that reflects the emerging reality. Just last week the headlines announced the world is fatter than it has ever been, with 2.1 billion people now overweight or obese, based on an analysis published in the online issue of the British medical journal The Lancet.
Researchers are divided about why weight gain seems to be irreversible, probably a combination of biological and social forces. "The fundamental reason," Caulfield says, "is that we are very efficient biological machines. We evolved not to lose weight. We evolved to keep on as much weight as we possibly can."
Lost in all of the noise about dieting and obesity is the difficult concept of prevention, of not putting weight on in the first place.
The Lancet study warned that more than one in five kids in developed countries are now overweight or obese. Statistics Canada says close to a third of Canadian kids under 17 are overweight or obese. And in a world flooded with food, with enormous economic interest in keeping people eating that food, what is required to turn this ship around is daunting.
"An appropriate rebalancing of the primal needs of humans with food availability is essential," University of Oxford epidemiologist Klim McPherson wrote in a Lancet commentary following last week's study. But to do that, he suggested, "would entail curtailing many aspects of production and marketing for food industries."
Perhaps, though, the emerging scientific reality should also be made clear, so we can navigate this obesogenic world armed with the stark truth — that we are held hostage to our biology, which is adapted to gain weight, an old evolutionary advantage that has become a dangerous metabolic liability.
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Replies
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It's a sobering thought. It's the reason why I plan for when the dieting ends...how I wish to live to keep it off.
I eat normal amounts of food, following hunger cues. I work on a healthy and nutritious diet. I do it so that when I'm done, it is "How I Live" and not "What I Do." I will not be relying on any certain diet or on weighing every bite of food or even logging. Those things can end simply by quitting them.
It's a great thing that this whole deal will take about two years. That has given me so much time to try new things and grow accustomed to my new habits...really making them HABITS. Habits are harder to break. You have to choose to change a habit.
I also have an "If I screw up later" plan. I will be guarding against gaining it back.
Still...sobering.0 -
I don't know if I feel like this is entirely credible. I think I've seen this article before and the studies they use didn't focus on teaching people how to make proper nutrition and exercise a part of their daily lives - they taught them how to lose weight quickly but not sustain it.0
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Of course we know the article makes sense because the masses over 60 years old on MFP post how we have lost weight over and over only to gain back more than 100% of each loss.
From what I read all dieting fails. What does work it seems to be adapting an eating lifestyle that leads to automatic weight control by the body itself.
It seems many people gain weight due to health issues of one type or another. Those will need to be learned and addressed before long term success I expect. It could be sleeping less than 8 hours a day, being low on Vitamin D3, eating processed food and on and on.0 -
That's why I don't ever plan on stopping logging - in it for life0
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I will be the special snowflake damn it !0
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That's why I don't ever plan on stopping logging - in it for life
There are too many calorie-dense foods with shockingly small portion sizes for me to stop.
While we're on the subject, remember that really small study that showed dieters had hormonal imbalances when they came off of their diets, and which theorized that this was responsible for some of the weight regained?
I don't care if it turns out to be woo, calorie counter for life here.0 -
A lot more detail on the types of studies (9 months is sometimes considered long term compared to perhaps normal 3 month studies) and the type of oversight given, and training.
Of course most studies that want to spend time on the back end in maintenance, need to go for massive weight loss fast to get that time over with quickly.
Any studies that go too long lose adherence by the participants - unless they are locked up and/or provided their only food to eat, and that's expensive.
So the few studies that have done long vs slow weight loss, never heard of followup years later. 3-9 months later, sure.0 -
I don't understand how you can "run a weight loss lab" at a university (the shrink quoted in the article) and say, "Weight loss doesn't happen to people long." No, weight loss does NOT "happen to people." It's a thing you work at.
The "95% of people fail diets" study is from 1959.
There is some recent research to suggest that people who were obese once upon a time and are now at a healthy weight, have a lower BMR (i.e. need fewer calories to function) than people who were never obese. That's one potential pitfall for people who lose weight. Another is the relationship between food and emotion. If you lose a bunch of weight but still have an effed up way of using food to hide or deal with emotion, you haven't really fixed the problem. You're probably going to regain.
A 2001 meta-study looked at other work in the intervening years and found that the average person who lost weight did, in fact, keep at least some of it off.
The US database of long-term weight loss finds that the common denominator of people who lose weight and keep it off long term is daily exercise. Generally, more of it (at least an hour a day, often something like walking) than their counterparts who were never obese.0 -
All people die. So I guess we should give up, huh?
Go ahead, use this to have that donut.
After all, you are going to fail.
It's "impossible".
Oh, wait.
Maybe it's just that the majority of people try thousands of bs diets.
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That's not altogether accurate, although the recidivism rate is pretty high. The problem is not in the way of the world, but rather because people continue to think about dieting as a separate activity from an activity of daily living. As long as there is a perception that this is a temporary stete (the act of "being on" a diet) tru success will, indeed not be attainable.
However, this is one of those posts that attracts the converted, so my response is based on an understanding that a total change of lifestyle is the only key to success. Hence, the forever statement of "diets don't work."0 -
http://www.exrx.net/FatLoss/WeightLossMaintenance.html
to above point about what common denominators of those that have been successful.
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http://www.exrx.net/FatLoss/WeightLossMaintenance.html
to above point about what common denominators of those that have been successful.
Thanks; this is really interesting. The statistic about how many more men than women follow formal weight-loss programs is surprising. (Thinking about how WW, Jenny Craig etc market so clearly to women.) I'd love to know what "formal weight-loss program" entails. Will have to dig up the actual study.
/nerd0 -
cheshirecatastrophe wrote: »http://www.exrx.net/FatLoss/WeightLossMaintenance.html
to above point about what common denominators of those that have been successful.
Thanks; this is really interesting. The statistic about how many more men than women follow formal weight-loss programs is surprising. (Thinking about how WW, Jenny Craig etc market so clearly to women.) I'd love to know what "formal weight-loss program" entails. Will have to dig up the actual study.
/nerd
I think MFP counts as a formal weight loss program. If you do it right, you're weighing and logging, you're accountable to friends, and you weigh in. Or maybe it just seems formal to me because most previous diets I've been on have been scrabbled together with half-remembered Women's Health articles and dreams.0 -
The study is available for free online!
It doesn't define "formal program" but does suggest it includes WW, OA, or working with a therapist. It's pre-social networking, so it would be interesting to see a revamped study in 5-10 years of MFP, SparkPeople, FatSecret etc.
The article also cites other research into why studies like that "95% of diet/dieters fail" one is flawed, but unfortunately just supplies the citation, not the reason. (Something about the population of test/survey subjects in a university lab situation.)0 -
If you chose to have a temporary lifestyle that you know you will not be able to sustain the long-term in order to lose weight,you'll obviously gain it back.Since that's what most people do,they happen to gain it back.
This is why I find it better that people calculate their maintenance calories at their goal weight and eat that much since the beginning.This way,eating that much will become their habit even if they stop tracking calories obsessively.0 -
I'd like to point out there are no references to actual studies in the article. Just "research suggests" etc. It's empty words without actual data.0
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Well, yes, because the attitude of a lot of people is "once I am at my goal weight I am done". They do not see their diet as something they will keep on doing for the rest of their lives. The go on "A Diet" and cannot imagine doing it for the rest of their lives.0
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Anecdotally, I'm sure this isn't true. I know of several people people who have managed to keep to a healthy weight 'long term'. My mother went from obese to healthy weight 20 years ago and apart from minor fluctuations she's kept it all off.0
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PFFFT what a bunch of bunk inho!
Unless one has a thyroid problem or other genetics which inhibits weight loss, I don't buy what this article is selling at all.
As with any research for every one that proves point A there are two more to prove the exact opposite. That is the nature of studies & research. Nice to know but I wouldn't let this deter anyone because it's their 'fate' to be over weight.
The National Weight Control Registry - chalk full of long term maintainers. nwcr.ws/ Check out the studies they conducted on registrants. Not to mention a very solid group of long term maintainers right here on MFP ... myself included. (I'm defining long-term as 1 yr+ which in it of itself surpasses the statistics of people regaining within the first year)
Although statistically speaking, yes maintaining the weight loss is against us, but in all fairness it is not because there's some magical unseen forces at work. There are a multitude reasons (factors) why people regain ...
ie. once reach goal reverts to old eating habits
or the emotion behind the emotional eating was never addressed so that habit returns etc.
Bottom line is articles like this is good to be aware of & make mental notes of possible pitfalls but don't treat it as the end all be all either because there are plenty of us long term maintainers beating the statistical odds every day.0
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