Weight Loss, Health, and Success: What Does the Research Say?
Everyone ‘knows’ you can pick a number on the scale, change your food and exercise and get to that weight and stay there, right?
Yet no scientific research exists which shows this is possible. Truly, none!
The research does show a very, very small percent of people who attempt to lose weight can keep it off, but there is no research showing long-term sustained weight loss for the majority of it’s participants. And no research - nada - showing you can pick a number, any number, and get there and say there.
Significant research from the 1960s to the present shows that 95 to 98% of those who try to lose weight will gain it all back. Recent research is finding that the regain rate is closer to 99%.
If diet plan advertisements stated, “Only 1% of people who attempt this program will succeed, and there is no way we can predict who might succeed,, and there are significant side effects,” would you attempt it?
And 30% of those will regain MORE than they lost. People often blame “fatness” on bad eating, I blame diets and weight cycling, because research is clear that those who try to lose weight by eating less or manipulating their food often end up fatter for their efforts.
A very hidden gem of this bad news is that you can quit blaming yourself for not being able to lose weight, blame Diet Culture, and find a new way to manage your food or eating.
But what about health? Research also shows that it is possible to be fat and healthy. And, weight loss can result in increased health problems, even in those who start out “obese,” as you can read below.
Check out Health Risks of Weight Loss by Francie Berg. Or, for more recent research, scroll below.
If Diets Backfire, What Can A Person Do?
Fortunately there are better ways to manage eating and weight. Research show those who eat intuitively have lower body mass indexes (BMIs), increased self-esteem, less anxiety, and significantly less disordered eating (binging, etc). This why we promote intuitive eating and why we don’t promote dieting and other weight loss eating styles.
But you have to look hard for the evidence, because our world lives in a fat is bad, thinner is better mentality. Following is some research you may not have heard showing that YOU are NOT the failure if/when you regain weight, and that healthy may not be the result of these efforts.
Research About the Effectiveness of Weight Loss
How To Leave Toxic Diet Culture Behind And Pursue Actual Health - Similar to this author, I (Karin) also analyzed obesity research during 8 years of pursuing a PhD in Cognitive Anthropology. And I found exactly what she found (and which others have found such as Gaesser, author of Big Fat Lies). 7/20
Search for Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not the Answer - “What happens to people on diets in the long run? Would they have been better off to not go on a diet at all? We decided to dig up and analyze every study that followed people on diets for two to five years. We concluded most of them would have been better off not going on the diet at all,” according to researcher Tracy Mann. Conclusions? After the diet, weight would be pretty much the same, but they would have negative health impacts from losing and gaining it all back.
Will you lose weight and keep it off if you diet? No, probably not. - UCLA researchers who analyzed EVERY study of people who dieted for 2 to 5 years concluded that:
You can initially lose 5 to 10 percent of your weight on any number of diets, but then the weight comes back,” said Traci Mann, UCLA associate professor of psychology and lead author of the study. “We found that the majority of people regained all the weight, plus more. Sustained weight loss was found only in a small minority of participants, while complete weight regain was found in the majority. Diets do not lead to sustained weight loss or health benefits for the majority of people.
In addition, the studies do not provide consistent evidence that dieting results in significant health improvements, regardless of weight change. In sum, there is little support for the notion that diets lead to lasting weight loss or health benefits.
Long-term effects of dieting: Is weight loss related to health?
Researchers did an extensive review of weight loss studies, examining whether weight-loss leads to improved cholesterol, triglycerides, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and fasting blood glucose and test whether the amount of weight lost is predictive of these health outcomes. Across all studies, there were minimal improvements in these health outcomes, and none of these correlated with weight change.
They conclude: “ If diets do not lead to long-term weight loss or long-term health benefits, it is difficult to justify encouraging individuals to endure them.” (2013 research by Tomiyama, Ahlstrom, and Mann.)
How Effective are Traditional Dietary and Exercise Interventions for Weight Loss
This study examined the history and effectiveness of diet and exercise in “obesity” treatment over the past 40 years. The results were not good For instance, a 15-wk diet or diet plus exercise program produces a weight loss of about 11 kg with a 60-80% maintenance after 1 yr. Long-term follow-up data are meager, but suggests almost complete relapse after 3-5 yr.
Methods for voluntary weight loss and control. NIH Technology Assessment Conference Panel
A panel of experts convened by the National Institutes of Health determined that “In controlled settings, participants who remain in weight loss programs usually lose approximately 10% of their weight. However, one third to two thirds of the weight is regained within one year [after weight loss], and almost all is regained within five years.”
Bacon L, Aphramor L: Weight Science, Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift
Current guidelines recommend that "overweight" and "obese" individuals lose weight through engaging in lifestyle modification involving diet, exercise and other behavior change. This approach reliably induces short term weight loss, but the majority of individuals are unable to maintain weight loss over the long term and do not achieve the putative benefits of improved morbidity and mortality. Concern has arisen that this weight focus is not only ineffective at producing thinner, healthier bodies, but may also have unintended consequences, contributing to food and body preoccupation, repeated cycles of weight loss and regain, distraction from other personal health goals and wider health determinants, reduced self-esteem, eating disorders, other health decrement, and weight stigmatization and discrimination.
“Consider the Women’s Health Initiative, the largest and longest randomized, controlled dietary intervention clinical trial, designed to test the current recommendations. More than 20,000 women maintained a low-fat diet, reportedly reducing their calorie intake by an average of 360 calories per day and significantly increasing their activity. After almost eight years on this diet, there was almost no change in weight from starting point (a loss of 0.1 kg), and average waist circumference, which is a measure of abdominal fat, had increased (0.3 cm)”
Field et. al Relationship Between Dieting and Weight Change among preadolescents and adolescents
“Findings from this study suggest that dieting, and particularly unhealthful weight control, is either causing weight gain, disordered eating or eating disorders; serving as an early marker for the development of these later problems or is associated with some other unknown variable that is leading to these problems. None of the behaviors being used by adolescents (in 1999) for weight-control purposes predicted weight loss[in 2006]…Of greater concern were the negative outcomes associated with dieting and the use of unhealthful weight-control behaviors, including significant weight gain…Our data suggest that for many adolescents, dieting to control weight is not only ineffective, it may actually promote weight gain”
“But Everything Is Supposed to Get Better After Bariatric Surgery!” Understanding Postoperative Suicide and Self-injury - Interesting phrases in this WLS article: “unmet expectations of surgical outcomes,” “postoperative improvements in self-esteem were transient,” and “some patients did not experience[self esteem] improvements at all following WLS,” “patients are most likely to regain weight after surgery (2–4 years postoperatively).” I’m glad they mentioned the weight regain at 2 to 4 years. MOST WLS research stops at 2 year follow ups, so they appear more successful than they are.
In this review of the research, Dieting, Weight, and Health: Reconceptualizing Research and Policy, Ernsberger dismantles common beliefs of the “weight loss is good” paradigm:
People can change their weight at will
Dieting works and improves health
Dieting makes you feel good
Fatness equal disease while thinness equals optimal health
He concludes that focus should be on health rather than weight. By shifting to a more comprehensive approach toward health we can prevent another generation of children, women, and men from developing eating problems, loathing their bodies, engaging in risky weight loss strategies, and dying to be thin.
