New Type of Web-based Diet Works
N E W Y O R K, March 6 -- E-mail and the World Wide Web may help you cut calories.
A study of overweight people found that weekly submission of calorie consumption and exercise diaries to a Web site and weekly dieting tip e-mails from a behavioral therapist helped them lose weight.
Those who participated in this six-month, interactive, Web-based dieting program lost, on average, 8.8 pounds after three months, and 9 pounds after six months. The study only followed the people for six months and was not as effective as in-person, noncommercial programs.
The results are in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The research, led by Deborah Tate, of Brown Medical School, in Providence, R.I., compared two types of Internet-based weight loss programs to see which was more effective. They split up two groups of people and monitored their dieting success.
In one group, 32 men and women attended an in-person weight loss group and were given access to the Internet with links to weight loss resources.
E-mail and Web Interactivity Worked
In the other, 33 participants attended the same in-person weight loss group, but also received 24 behavioral lessons via e-mail, and were asked to submit self-monitoring diaries (including exercise frequency and calorie counting) to which a behavioral therapist responded via e-mail. Additionally, members of this group could engage in an online bulletin board.
The study found that participants who received the more structured Internet behavior intervention cut their calorie consumption, lost significantly more weight and showed greater reductions in waist circumference at three and six months.
“The behavior therapy program was effective in almost doubling the percentage of participants who achieved a 5 percent weight loss goal,” the researchers say.
The Web-based interactive software is only a prototype, but some believe such types of programs could reach the millions of Americans struggling with obesity.
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