Study: Obese men have just a '1 in 210' chance of attaining a healthy body weight

senecarr · July 2015

Merkavar wrote: »

flyingtanuki wrote: »

<---- I succeeded. So, 209 of you might as well give up and leave.

But but but ... Fine. I'll leave then, no point

PSST, just cheat and get back in the line.

DopeItUp · July 2015

bpetrosky wrote: »

Reading the article, it looks like the study is only looking at the data from British health records. There's no indication that many of the people included in the study dataset even had been on a deliberate weight loss plan. The statistic is possibly skewed more heavily towards failure if they aren't evaluating for individual plans or commitment levels (self initiated vs. doctor recommended).

Unfortunately a lot of people will take that one piece of information to justify their own defeatist mindset and give themselves permission to fail

Yeah, the article seems a bit sensationalizing (shocking, I know). Nowhere does it mention that anyone was trying to lose weight?

Each year obese men have a one in 12 chance of achieving five per cent weight loss, rising to one in 10 among women. But 53 per cent of people who had achieved this regained the weight within a year, and after five years, only 22 per cent had maintained their weight loss.

This part is more telling. Of those that DID lose weight, 22% maintained it for 5+ years. That's a lot better than the <.5% chance they are quoting.

Furthermore, they talk about losing 5% of weight? For a 200lb person that's only 10lbs. My weight can fluctuate more than that inside of a week. Again, no mention of whether these people were even trying to lose that weight. It could have just been slight shifts year to year. I'd like to see the stats for people who consciously were trying to lose weight and lost a more reasonable amount (say 10-20% or higher). I'm guessing it's a whole lot higher than 1 in 210.

Orphia · July 2015

6502programmer wrote: »

Meh. I quit smoking my first attempt. This is cake compared to nicotine.

Ditto to this!

Orphia · July 2015

Alatariel75 wrote: »

Do these stats take into account the vast number of people who never try?

Exactly. No, they don't.

Sued0nim · July 2015

Sued0nim · July 2015

bpetrosky · July 2015

rabbitjb wrote: »

Evil, evil, bunny...did I see you in a Monty Python movie?

Merkavar · July 2015

rabbitjb wrote: »

Psa: while at work don't search google images for "the average adult has one testicle" in an attempt to find that image, to share later.

PaulaWallaDingDong · July 2015

I also dislike statistics. My solution is to create new data.

barbecuesauce · July 2015

Who cares? I make my own luck. -65 pounds down. I'm going to maintain, too.
sucks for the 123 women who give up or think they're done when the weight comes off, I guess.

stevencloser · July 2015

[insert Shia LaBeouf video here]

kpkitten · July 2015

Urgh so many issues with this article.
It doesn't say whether people were trying to lose weight and whether they were trying to do so for the full period of time concerned.
It measures success as going from an obese BMI to a "normal" BMI within a year - is normal healthy? or an average? Because the two aren't the same! And many people who are obese have too much weight to lose in a year, or at least have enough to lose to reach a healthy BMI that they won't consider it not a success to take more than a year to do so! If someone got to "overweight" BMI in a year, and "normal" the year after, their success wouldn't even register because they're going from overweight not obese for the purposes of this study, right?!

I'm pretty sure that people who stick to sensible diets lose weight and those who give up or aren't dieting (or changing their lifestyle, w/e) "properly" don't. So assuming that the 210 men were trying to lose weight, all this tells me is that 209 of them either had too much to lose in that period of time or weren't doing it properly/didn't stick to it. Moral of the story? Stick to what works and don't give up!