Hi everyone
I remember maybe a month ago there was a lot of talk about the statistics around weight loss, particularly how depressing they are. Well i was doing some research for a university project and i find this interesting piece of information. This is from the article "Intention, Perceived Control, and Weight Loss: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior" by Deborah E. Schifter and Icek Ajzen, 1985, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, volume 49, number 3

"Schachter (1982) has argued that the difficulty of losing weight has been greatly overstated. According to his analysis of the problem, the pessimistic conclusions regarding people's ability to control their body weight were based on work with self-selected populations of obese individuals who actively sought help, neglecting all those who were able to succeed on their own. In his studies of nontherapeutic populations, over 60% of obese individuals were successful in their attempts to lose and keep off substantial amounts of weight."

I thought it was pretty positive and should be shared

I'm so glad you posted this! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I do think that a lot of times, studies are posted to make an impact....for shock value. Then, we get so shocked that we can't forget the info we read and then, it becomes ingrained in our minds as undisputed fact. Now we know better!

People are often so negative about weight loss, it's true, we're told constantly how hard it is to lose weight, and then that even if we do "we'll just put it all back on again"

I heard this so many times from a friend who claimed it was almost impossible to lose extra weight gained, yet she'd never once tried to adjust her eating habits so there's no way she'd know that was true.

Personally I've found that less calories consumed than calories burned (combined with exercise to keep the metabolism on its toes) leads to weight loss, barring any medical conditions it seems logical. As for the whole gaining it back thing, well, obviously it would be kinda silly to return to the eating habits and lifestyle that caused the weight gain in the first place and expect a different result the second time round!

The mental aspect can definitely be difficult, it's damn hard to change long term habits, and even harder if we were to believe that we are trying to do the impossible. So, thank you for that positive post

No problem, im glad other people find it up lifting too ^_^ Over 60% success really beats the 2% i seem to remember from some other stats that had 98% failure rates. Just goes to show you have to poke those stats until you know what they really represent

If energy out>energy in, you're likely to lose weight, makes sense to me too

Yes thank you for finding and sharing this. It seems that so many studies of so many things are myopic in their scope and later on we find out about the important missing details. I like 60% a lot.

a lot of studies i think leave out the things they dont investigate (well you cant include things you havent investigated can you lol) but that leaves it open to interpretation, sometimes falsely and pessimistically.

I like 60% a lot too

Thank you for posting...I need that lift today!

I also always remember something someone said about statistics, that they are useful to predict large populations, but we each are an "n" of 1. So, if something happens to you, it happens to 100% of you!

You made my morning with this one! Thank you for posting it!

"They" also publish the statistics they think will help them sell something. Until reading this thread, I never really thought about it, but every time I heard about some terrible weightloss statistic, it was from someone trying to sell me on some diet or other! (Or someone sponsored by someone trying to sell me some diet or other.)

Tera said it ... to sell something.

If I can prove to you that nobody can lose weight and keep it off, you will believe that you'll need a little something extra. Enter me with my magic potion.

I think that scientifically, the "studier" will "study" the thing that will get the best results for whatever thing is being "studied."

If that makes any sense.

It's like if a designer wants their clothes to really SELL, they'll make sure that the models wearing them look REALLY GOOD in them. You wanna sell a pantsuit for a tall person, you won't dress a short person in it & try to sell it, right?

I think we all know what a booming success the weight loss business is. It rakes in billions a year - BILLIONS. And strangely, we (America) are fatter than ever.

I just keep reminding myself how DIFFERENT we all are as individuals. Some of us do well with diet, some not with diet but with exercise, some with diet & exercise, some with South Beach, some with Weight Watchers, some with counting calories, some with low fat, some with calorie cycling, etc etc etc. The human body is TRULY an amazing machine.... we're all so much ALIKE, & yet each of us are so ... very... different.

you mean like how studies look for evidence for their hypothesis and not evidence that would dismiss it?

People ARE so different, to say that 98% are unsuccessful is pretty useless, it might be that 80% of people on plans that they find suit them are successful, but over 90% of people are trying to make plans work that dont suit them, for example. Stats is to tricky