OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention program on overweight to achieve a minimum decrease of 5% or a optimum of 10% of initial weight a year, and to identify the factors associated with slimming. DESIGN: Randomized controlled trial. SETTING: Urban health centre. PARTICIPANTS: Overweight subjects over 18 years old (n = 169), wanting treatment or referred by their doctor. They were randomly assigned to the intervention (n = 95) or control (n = 70) group. INTERVENTIONS: Intervention group: yearly program with consultations every 15 to 21 days, using a low calorie diet, prescribing physical exercise, changing of habits and health education. Control group: low calorie diet, seen 3 times/year. RESULTS: The minimum weight loss was achieved in 6 months by 37.9% of the intervention group and by 21.4% of the control group. At one year, 45.3% of the intervention subjects and 24.3% of the control group reached this objective. The optimum loss of 10% was higher in the intervention group, but was not statistically significant. The minimum objective was associated with the intervention group (OR 4.5 (1.36 to 14.49)). It was also associated to the number of visits during therapy (OR 1.85 (1.50 to 2.29)) and diabetes (OR 10 (1.13 to 90.9)). CONCLUSIONS: The intervention group had a loss of 5% of initial weight in the first 6 months, 16.5% more than the control group, and 21% more in one year. Achieving the minimum objective was associated with the intervention group, the number of visits and the diagnosis of diabetes.

Full text (sometimes free) may be available at these link(s):      help

• PubMed Central
• DOI
• PubMed
• PDF locator
• publisher