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The results of a ten-year study on dealing with and fighting severe obesity: The struggle is constant, prolonged, and lonely.
The fight against obesity
It doesn’t make you very happy. Many conclusions won’t surprise you either. Yet, we might be able to extract some practical tips that could help you in the fight against obesity.
The researchers from the University of Gothenburg used data from the SOS Study (Swedish Obese Subjects). This study focused on the effects of surgical intervention in obesity. This time, however, the attention was directed to the information from the control group in that study. The people who had not undergone surgical intervention. Their data regarding attempts to lose weight was recorded for ten years in follow-ups.
One of the main outcomes was that 83 percent of the participants indicated that they were constantly trying to lose weight or not gain weight. Ingrid Larsson from the university therefore suggests that it should not be thought that this group is not trying to lose weight. The results of this study would contradict that.
Trying vs. Achieving
Although the vast majority of participants constantly tried to control their weight, weight increased by an average of 2.1 percent over ten years. Just over a fifth of the participants had seen their weight increase by more than 10%.
Interestingly, there was no difference in the methods used to lose weight between people who lost or gained weight. Think of commercial weight loss programs, medication, low-calorie fluid diets, exercise, with or without professional support.
Which method was used did not make a difference. About ten percent of people had lost more than ten percent of their body weight in ten years. The 22.5% of participants who had gained more than 10% had used the same methods. There were significant differences in results among individuals using the same methods.
It wasn’t about the method, but about the ability to reduce calorie intake over a longer period of time. That is a message that we cannot repeat often enough and loudly enough here. Ultimately, they are all different paths to the same destination. It doesn’t matter which path you choose as long as you keep walking.
Lonely
Apparently, walking mostly happens alone.
Losing weight on your own was tried the most. It’s unfortunate that from the summary I can’t see how the comparison is between losing weight with and without help in this study.
Previous studies have certainly delved into this. Brazilian researchers compared thirteen different studies on the effects of coaching. Life sessions in group settings and remote coaching via telephone were most common as forms of coaching. They also compared formal health and weight education with (technical) coaching.
The Brazilians concluded from their review of these studies that coaching is an effective way to bring together knowledge about health and its application in practice. Coaching can involve a loved one who regularly keeps an eye on things and provides a push. It can also consist of professional coaching by someone who also provides the necessary knowledge. Their research also shows that professional coaching is the most successful in achieving changes in body composition.
Once an alcoholic….
It’s not exactly encouraging that maintaining a healthy weight should be a lifelong, continuous struggle. However, for some, that is the reality. In this recent study, participants had severe obesity with a BMI of 40. So a bit of perspective is in order.
Factors such as motivation, discipline, and self-control are important qualities that should contribute to success, but are all partly innate. The participants say they are constantly working on their weight. For some, refraining from indulging may require much more willpower than for others.
It can feel like quite an achievement if you eat ‘only’ one cream puff and leave a second one. If someone then asks you if you made an effort for your weight that day, the answer could be ‘yes!’ even though that one cream puff didn’t fit into your diet. Another person may have just as much appetite but considers ‘making an effort’ resisting the first cream puff. They feel they have put in the same effort.
Finally, a third person may already feel sick halfway through such a calorie bomb due to a lower hunger feeling or higher satiety feeling. That certainly makes a difference; if you don’t have to exert any self-control at all because your hormones prevent you from eating too much.
Many things can go wrong in people with severe obesity. The subjective feeling of hunger may be increased. The self-control to resist that feeling may be decreased. Finally, your body may also tend to store a lot of the received energy.
If you have all those factors against you, unfortunately, you cannot expect to ever have a normal weight without it feeling like a struggle. For some, losing weight means learning and getting used to a new lifestyle. For others, that new lifestyle will unfortunately never become familiar.
References
- Edit Zenténius, Johanna C. Andersson-Assarsson, Lena M.S. Carlsson, Per-Arne Svensson, Ingrid Larsson. Self-Reported Weight-Loss Methods and Weight Change: Ten-Year Analysis in the Swedish Obese Subjects Study Control Group. Obesity, 2018;
- Muñoz Obino KF, Aguiar Pereira C, Caron-Lienert RS. Coaching and barriers to weight loss: an integrative review. Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity: Targets and Therapy. 2017;10:1-11. doi:10.2147/DMSO.S113874.
