It appears that weightwatchers is now available on prescription via an NHS referral. This has been achieved on the basis that weightwatchers are performing better than primary care trusts in weight reduction. Not that it’s a surprise. Put a service that you are motivated to pay for against some hard-nosed and solid health advice and its a no brainer. However there is also strong evidence to support the “walletwatchers” programme.

We know this because the weightwatchers foundation has produced a number of “independent studies” to back this up. Some deal with short term weight loss and show good results. Of course these are of little interest because that’s not surprising. Pretty much any short-term weight loss effort will work. What is surprising is a study they quote from that goes against pretty much every other longer term study of weight loss. They quote this as evidence of positive long-term outcomes using weightwatchers.

“The NICE4 guidelines on obesity estimate the cost effectiveness of surgery for obesity to be in the range of £6,300 to £8,500 per QALY, while drugs used to suppress diet range from £3,200 to £24,000 a year. By comparison, the cost effectiveness of a weight management programme with Weight Watchers is around £1,000 per QALY. This evaluation concluded that; ‘Weight Watchers appears to be offer a cost effective means of providing weight management services for NHS patients’.”

We are on a roll now. This programme is more effective than the NHS, surgery and drugs. Incidentally the latter two have never been suggested as the long-term answer to global obesity, have they? It’s a bit like suggesting we should open more cycle lanes seeing as its cheaper than giving everyone jet packs! Using these findings they are in buoyant mood and can slip in the long-term findings from the Lowe report. No one will notice. Thanks to this scheme we will save millions of pounds of surgically removed fat and a lot of money. It’s clear that by using some headlines no one is going to sit and sift through pages of analytical data, least of all the government.

The sample used in the reports own words was “not typical” of clinical samples in fact it was not typical of weightwatchers because they used around 7/800 of the most successful weightwatchers participants who had gained lifetime membership in the U.S. It’s not me saying that it’s in the report. In fact they go on to say that this group were the ones who had considerably less weight to lose in the first place. Surely this brings into perspective the maintained weight loss figures. Having said that they are not that impressive after all because when the figures are extrapolated you get the following. Read the report carefully by the way as the terminology changes. % of weight lost then later becomes % of lost weight? So I lose 20% of body weight which is 20lbs and keep off 5% of my weight loss which is 1lb? These are the five-year successes but never mind them what about the failures?

Percentage of participant heavier than when they started

Year 1 6%

Year 2 10%

Year 5 25%

Bear in mind this was the weightwatchers “elite” the very best and most successful weightwatchers members who had less to lose anyway, a quarter of them were heavier after 5 years than when they started.

But we all knew that anyway

Stop dieting and start losing weight www.12fatladies.com

Lowe MR et al (2001) Weight loss maintenance in overweight individuals one to five years following successful completion of a commercial weight loss programme. International Journal of Obesity, 25: 325-331.

Lowe MR et al (2007) Weight loss maintenance 1, 2 and 5 years after successful completion of a weight-loss programme. Br J Nutr, Nov 28; 1-6

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Michael J Dawson is a speaker, trainer and author of \”12 fat ladies\” how to get off diets and stay off diets … forever http://www.12fatladies.com

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Category: Advice
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