Three-Year Follow-Up of Participants from a Self-Weighing Randomized Controlled Trial

Frequent self-weighing is associated with weight loss maintenance. several years ago,we investigated frequent self-weighing's effect on weight loss and found the participants lost a significant amount of weight. three years after this trial's end,participants were contacted for an update on their weight and self-weighing frequency. weight change and self-weighing frequency since the end of the study were assessed. we hypothesized that participants who maintained frequent self-weighing behavior would have maintained their weight loss. out of 98 participants enrolled in the rct,37% (n = 36) participated in this follow-up study. total weight loss during the trial for the follow-up participants was 12.7 ± 19.4 lbs (p<0.001). three years after intervention,participants regained 0.9 ± 4.34 lbs,a value that was not statistically different from zero (p=0.75). this did not differ by gender (p=0.655). over 75% of these participants continued to weigh themselves at least once a week. frequent self-weighing may be an effective,low-cost strategy for weight loss maintenance. future research should further investigate the role of self-weighing in long-term weight gain prevention. © 2017 lua wilkinson et al.