American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 60, 688-694, Copyright © 1994 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc

ORIGINAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

A prospective study of weight maintenance in obese subjects reduced to normal body weight without weight-loss training

DD Hensrud, RL Weinsier, BE Darnell and GR Hunter
Department of Nutrition Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham.

We examined the pattern of weight maintenance in 24 obese women [body mass index (BMI; in kg/m2) 27.6 +/- 0.4 who were provided foods for a balanced deficit diet until each had lost > or = 10 kg and attained normal body weight (BMI 22.9 +/- 0.4). At 1 y subjects had regained a mean of 42% of their weight loss, which increased to 87% at 4 y. At 4 y 44% of patients had regained < 75%, whereas 37% had regained > or = 100% of the weight originally lost. The amount of weight gained was markedly different from that observed in 24 pair-matched never-obese control subjects over the same length of follow-up. Because the results reported herein were obtained without teaching the subjects weight- control skills, they may be regarded as reflective of the natural history of weight maintenance in this population and may serve as a reference for various weight-intervention programs. The pattern of weight rebound observed in this study is very similar to the pattern observed in combined results from published diet and behavioral- modification programs, which raises important questions regarding the efficacy of these approaches in long-term weight maintenance.

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