🗣️New pub:
We used machine learning & natural language processing to analyze the words of >6K people experiencing long-term weight-loss maintenance who answered open-ended questions about weight-loss triggers, current motivations, strategies, & experiences. A thread of findings:
We used machine learning & natural language processing to analyze the words of >6K people experiencing long-term weight-loss maintenance who answered open-ended questions about weight-loss triggers, current motivations, strategies, & experiences. A thread of findings:
Methods: We recruited 6,139 @ww_us members who had lost ≥9.1-kg loss with weight-loss maintenance for ≥1yr into the WW Success Registry and asked six open-ended questions about their weight loss experience. On average, members maintained a weight loss of 54 pounds for 3.4 yr.
74% of @ww Success Registry Members routinely track their weight and 82% find inspiration in non-scale victories. Though weight was something they were conscious of, it was far from the only thing that matters.
Questions asked are in the table below.
Questions asked are in the table below.
Results: Profound rewards for their weight management efforts were described, including major improvements in confidence, pain, mobility, body image, and mental and physical health.
See table 👇🏽 for powerful quotes on the impact weight loss & management has had on their lives.
See table 👇🏽 for powerful quotes on the impact weight loss & management has had on their lives.
Powerful advice they had for others was persevere in the face of inevitable setbacks. Successful weight loss described as “a long marathon w/ individual victories & setbacks” requiring “great perseverance.” When faced w setbacks, recommended restarting anew the next day or asap
Weight-loss maintainers described tracking food intake as an essential skill within a healthy lifestyle.
Two thematic negative consequences were clothing costs and sagging skin.
Two thematic negative consequences were clothing costs and sagging skin.
Impt to note: appearance concern was identified as a major motivator of both weight loss and maintenance. Participants described initiating successful weight-loss efforts out of intense feelings of “shame” and “disgust” after looking at themselves in the mirror or in photographs.
The persistence of appearance-based concerns reflect a distressing sociocultural environment that ties appearance w self-concept, stigmatizes & discriminates against people with obesity, & promotes an arbitrary definition of beauty based on Western thin ideal & White Supremacy.
A major limitation of the study is that participants
were predominantly White, female, married, educated, & with at least midlevel income. Also, within the cohort, people who chose versus those who did not choose to complete the open-ended questions were more likely to be White.
were predominantly White, female, married, educated, & with at least midlevel income. Also, within the cohort, people who chose versus those who did not choose to complete the open-ended questions were more likely to be White.
Thus, findings may only generalize to a primarily White subset of the population of weight-loss maintainers. This is a significant study weakness bc prevalence of obesity & related comorbidities is highest in marginalized groups, including people of color & those with lower SES.
Future weight-maintenance research should include more diverse populations. Societal level interventions that confront a prevailing sociocultural climate in which weight-based self-esteem and discrimination
persist are critically needed.
persist are critically needed.
Reading some of the participant responses had me in tears. It's an honor to get to work on this project led by @sphelanp and with @DrGaryFoster. Lots of important work yet to do. Full manuscript can be found here in @ObesitySociety journal Obesity: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ob…
You can read more in @ConscienHealth post about the article here: conscienhealth.org/2022/02/weighi…
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