If the recent cold weather has kept you indoors and put your healthy eating resolution on hold then we have the perfect solution for you. You can avoid traipsing out in that wet and windy weather, to attend meetings, by accessing your diet programme online.
Although the rapid increase in access to the world wide web has made the internet the perfect tool for health promotion or intervention, the effectiveness of using this method to lose weight has not been assessed by scientists until recently. The results look good for our members!
There are now three published scientific studies which have found that internet weight loss services are as effective as traditional meetings.
A recent study found that people following an internet-based weight maintenance programme showed weight loss equivalent to those people who continued to attend face-to-face meetings (Obesity Research; 12:320-329).
Another study found that people who had received a structured weight loss programme through the internet achieved a 5% reduction in weight over a 6 month period. The programme included email newsletters, a discussion forum and individualised feedback from a trained therapist by email (JAMA; 285:1172-1177). The model used in this study is very similar to our programme!
The results of this large, randomized control trial show the potential benefit of a Web-based tailored expert system for weight management compared with a Web-based information-only weight management program.
Participants assigned to the tailored expert system showed significantly greater weight loss at follow-up than those assigned to the information-only condition. Participants were also more likely to report that the tailored expert system was personally relevant, helpful, and easy to understand (Obesity Research,14:266-272).