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Weight Watchers Diet

November 5, 2011 by · Comments Off on Weight Watchers Diet 

Weight Watchers Diet, The rising rates of obesity are a major public health concern, with nearly 1 in 4 people in England now classed as obese, which increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and many other health problems. Guidelines advise doctors to offer the overweight patients with weight loss advice and support, but often there are few resources available on the NHS.

In contrast, commercial weight loss programs like Weight Watchers, are widespread. In some areas, the NHS offers the following free services to patients. The research provides some support for this practice, with a recent study showing that obese patients referred by their physician Weight Watchers lost twice the weight of more than 12 months, those with usual care in the NHS.

Extending this research, the new study focused on six programs for weight loss: three business plans (Weight Watchers, Slimming World, Rosemary Conley and) and three primary care settings (group therapy led by a dietitian, one on one with the advice nurse, and one by one, with the advice of a pharmacist).

The researchers randomly assigned overweight adults to one program or a comparison group who received vouchers for a local recreation center. Some participants also were given the option plans. In total, 740 people participated in the program, which lasted 12 weeks.

At the end of 12 weeks all groups had lost weight. The average weight loss was greater for the Weight Watchers group (4.4 kilos) and lower for the nurses took the advice (1.4 kg).

The three commercial programs had the highest percentage of people (46 percent of the weight watchers, 42 percent of Rosemary Conley, and 35 percent of Slimming World) loss of at least 5 percent of their body weight . This is the number of doctors recommend weight overweight people to lose in order to see the health benefits.

Commercial programs were also cheaper to provide primary care options.

In general, weight loss for primary care groups was not better than the comparison group.

When the researchers tracked the participants a year later, the group of Weight Watchers was the only one still lost more weight, on average, than the comparison group.

The results were the same for men and women and for people who chose their weight loss program rather than having it assigned.

The study did not explore why commercial programs led to greater weight loss, but the researchers offer some theories. Although the agents responsible for primary care programs have weight loss training, they were not as experienced as the directors of commercial software.

Also, some people may have found a solution based on the support group and attractive commercial programs. Perhaps reflecting this, Weight Watchers had the highest percentage of participants attending at least half of all sessions, 70 percent.

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