Computer-automated weight loss counseling works
An Internet-based weight loss program that provides users with automated and tailored behavioral counseling may be as effective in the short-term as an Internet program that incorporates human e-mail counseling, new study findings suggest.
“This study shows that an Internet behavioral weight loss program providing weekly feedback about weight, diet, and activity from either a computer-automated program or a human e-mail counselor produced significant weight loss,” Dr. Deborah F. Tate, of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and her colleagues write in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
What’s more, both types of programs appear to be more successful than a self-directed program that offers no additional counseling.
"Having computer automated guidance that is very specific to that person’s weekly progress—not a generic spam email—is more effective than a program that does not offer ongoing help; if human counseling is available it may be even more helpful,” Tate told Reuters Health.
And either counseling approach may offer an alternative to in-person sessions with a weight-loss professional, the study’s findings imply.
Previous studies have shown that e-mail counseling helps improve weight loss among individuals who use Internet-based weight loss programs. Tate and her team speculated that providing computer-automated counseling tailored to an individual’s performance could be cheaper and therefore made more widely available than human e-mail counseling.
To investigate, they randomly assigned 192 overweight or obese adults, aged 49 years on average, to an Internet-based weight loss group that received no counseling, a group that received computer-automated counseling, or a group that received human e-mail counseling.
All of the participants received coupons for weight-loss meal-replacement products and were encouraged to increase their level of physical activity.
The two counseling groups were able to report their weight, exercise and other information online in an electronic diary and to post messages to other members of their weight loss group via an online message board.
Three months later, study participants in both the computer-automated and the human counseling groups had achieved similar amounts of weight loss, about 5 to 6 kilograms or 11 to 13 pounds. This was significantly more than the 2.8 kilograms (6 pounds) of weight lost by those who had not received any counseling, the investigators report.
This shows that “all Internet programs are not created equal,” according to Tate.
The similar weight lost by the two counseling groups after three months “suggests that computer feedback was sufficient to promote short-term adherence to the diet and activity goals,” Tate and her associates conclude.
Further, the computer-automated program “is much less expensive to deliver to large audiences,” Tate said. “That’s important when we are looking at public health solutions to overweight.”
The study was funded by the SlimFast Nutrition Institute.
SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, August 14/28, 2006.
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