Journal article
Testing the short-term effectiveness of primary care referral to online weight loss programmes: A randomised controlled trial
- Abstract:
- Guidelines ask health professionals to offer brief advice to encourage weight loss for people living with obesity. We tested whether referral to one of three online programmes could lead to successful weight loss. A total of 528 participants aged ≥18 years with a body mass index of ≥30 kg/m2 were invited via a letter from their GP. Participants were randomised to one of three online weight loss programmes (NHS Weight Loss Plan, Rosemary Online or Slimming World Online) or to a control group receiving no intervention. Participants self-reported weight at baseline and 8 weeks. The primary outcome was weight change in each of the active intervention groups compared with control. We also compared the proportion of participants losing ≥5% or ≥10% of body weight. For Rosemary, Online mean weight loss was modestly greater than control (−1.5 kg [95% confidence interval (CI) −2.3 to −0.6]) and more than three times as many participants in this group lost ≥5% (relative risk [RR] = 3.64, 95% CI: 1.63–8.1). For Slimming World, mean weight loss was not significantly different from control (−0.8 kg [95%CI −1.7 to 0.1]), twice as many participants lost ≥5% (RR = 2.70, 1.17–6.23). There was no significant difference in weight loss for participants using the NHS Weight Loss Plan (−0.4 kg, [95% CI −1.3 to 0.5]), or the proportion losing ≥5% (RR = 2.09, 0.87–5.01). Only one of three online weight loss programmes was superior to no intervention and the effect size modest among participants living with obesity.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.1MB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.1111/cob.12482
Authors
- Publisher:
- Wiley
- Journal:
- Clinical Obesity More from this journal
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 6
- Article number:
- e12482
- Publication date:
- 2021-10-06
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-06-30
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1758-8111
- ISSN:
-
1758-8103
- Pmid:
-
34612589
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1187335
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1187335
- Deposit date:
-
2021-10-20
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Noreik et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- © 2021 The Authors. Clinical Obesity published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of World Obesity Federation. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record