November 2009

Health-At-Every-Size and Eating Behaviors: 1-Year Follow-Up Results of a Size Acceptance Intervention

Veronique Provencher, PhD, RD; Catherine Begin, PhD; Angelo Tremblay, PhD; Lyne Mongeau, PhD, RD;Louise Corneau, MS, RD; Sylvie Dodin, MD, MS; Sonia Boivin, PhD; Simone Lemieux, PhD, RD

The traditional viewpoint of dieting is that a person who desires to lose weight should set a number-oriented goal for themselves and then adopt behaviors appropriate to meet that goal. It sounds simple enough, but most people know of at least one person (possibly themselves) who has set a weight loss goal and failed to achieve it. Failure to meet the goal is damaging to weight loss efforts and often leads the dieter to regain the weight they did manage to lose. In turn, this regaining of weight once lost becomes frustrating and shameful to the dieter and can result in several poor outcomes, both physical and psychological. The Health at Every Size (HAES) initiative aims to combat these poor outcomes by doing away with number goals entirely. Instead, HAES encourages individuals to adopt generalized healthy behaviors to increase individual fitness and to accept their body’s weight as it was. The idea behind HAES is that if individuals adopt healthy behaviors they will eventually reach a healthy weight without having to purposefully diet.

The purpose of this study was to conduct a HAES program and compare effectiveness to a more traditional weight loss program that emphasized social support. The study measured eating behaviors, sensitivity to feelings of hunger, BMI and physical activity of all participants. Measurements were taken before the intervention, immediately after the intervention (14-week program) and then again at 6 months and 12 months post-intervention.

The 144 female participants (99.3% white, average age 42 years) were recruited through various avenues and divided into three groups: HAES, traditional social support (SS) and control. There were no significant differences between the groups.

At the end of the study, eating behaviors had improved for both the HAES and SS groups. There were no significant differences between the groups with regard to the amount of behavior change. There was no change in behavior for the control group. There was no significant change in participants’ BMIs. That being said, 63% of the members of the HAES group did weigh 2% less at the end of the study. This is compared to a 1% loss for 57% of the SS group. The control group did not report any weight loss. Researchers associated adoption of healthier behaviors with loss of weight.

The authors of this study concluded that an HAES approach to weight management may be beneficial long-term, especially in regard to adoption of sustainable health-related behaviors. This study is unable to be generalized to minority ethnic groups as nearly all participants were white.

Articles:
Provencher, V., Begin, C., Mongeau, L., Corneau, L., Dodin, S., Boivin, S., Lemieux,S. (2009). Health-At-Every-Size and eating behaviors: 1-year follow-up results of a size acceptance intervention. Journal of the American Dietetics Association, 109(11), 1854-61.

http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.ilstu.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=108&sid=3c4ea0c8-8eaf-4e66-9767-c0e4d0322a6f%40sessionmgr110&bdata=JmxvZ2lucGFnZT1Mb2dpbi5hc3Amc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZlJnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#db=aph&AN=44829884

Lindel, J., Jeffery, R., Levy, R., Pronk, N., Boyle, R. (2005). Weight loss goals and treatment outcomes among overweight men and women enrolled in a weight loss trial. International Journal of Obesity, 29, 1002-05.

http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.ilstu.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=7&hid=108&sid=11de0d05-9876-404c-9ee7-5a185165d0d7%40sessionmgr110