Evaluating a Small Change Approach to Preventing Long Term Weight Gain in Overweight and Obese Adults

The prevalence of obesity and associated morbidity among Canadian adults is already high and increasing. Prevalence estimates for overweight determined from measured height and weight now exceeds 62 % in Canadian adults1; approximately 15.5 million Canadian adults are now overweight and obese1. Obesity is associated with a wide range of health outcomes from co-morbidities including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and certain cancers, to psychiatric disorders such as depression1. Direct costs attributed to obesity in Canada range from 4.6 to 7.1 billion dollars annually1. Despite agreement concerning the urgent need to address the obesity problem; few strategies have been successful on a wide scale basis. Past efforts to achieve and sustain weight loss have not been particularly successful. We3 and others4 have repeatedly demonstrated in randomized controlled trials that most adults are not able to sustain the major changes in behaviour that are required to maintain weight loss long term. Thus, although it is an admirable goal to substantially reduce the number of overweight or obese Canadians, this goal may be totally out of reach in the short term. The question then is what can be done to address the obesity problem now? We propose that a reasonable start point in addressing the obesity problem is to develop behavioural goals for prevention of weight gain. This strategy can at least keep the problem from getting worse and at best, can reduce obesity rates over time.