Adherence
Dietary treatment for obesity yields a median long-term success rate of 15% over 3-14 years, defined as maintaining all initial weight loss or at least 9-11 kg.
Expect that long-term weight maintenance is difficult, with only 1 in 7 people successfully keeping off significant weight loss over several years. To improve your odds, combine your diet with active follow-up (regular contact with a clinic) and group therapy, which were associated with higher success rates (up to 27%) compared to diet alone.
Overall, 15% (median, range 0–49%) of followed-up patients fulfilled one of the criteria for success. Overall, success rates seemed stable for up to 14 years of observation.
Why this rating
Systematic review of heterogeneous observational and controlled studies; limited number of high-quality RCTs with long-term follow-up.
Source
Long‐term efficacy of dietary treatment of obesity: a systematic review of studies published between 1931 and 1999
C. Ayyad et al. · Obesity Reviews · 2000
DOI 10.1046/j.1467-789x.2000.00019.x
More from this paper
- Conventional Diet (CD) combined with group therapy yields better long-term success rates (median 27%) than CD alone or CD with behavior modification.Moderate
- Very-low-calorie diets (VLCD) combined with behavior modification and active follow-up yield the highest median success rate (38%) among specific regimen combinations.Limited
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- Resistance exercise is the only intervention capable of consistently restoring muscle function and strength in sarcopenia, partially overcoming age-related anabolic resistance.Strong
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