Commercial weight loss programmes are cheaper to administer and are more effective than primary care-based services, researchers say today.
A study at the University of Birmingham, UK, concluded that primary care-led programmes were “ineffective”.
Researchers compared the effectiveness of a number of commercial weight loss programmes with primary care-led programmes and a control group over 12 weeks. But their report, in the British Medical Journal, found that just one commercial programme was better than self-help.
A total of 740 obese and overweight men and women took part in the study and follow-up data were available for 658 (89 per cent) participants at the end of each 12-week programme and 522 (71 per cent) at one year.
Weight Watchers; Slimming World; Rosemary Conley; a group-based dietetics programme; general practice one to one counselling; and pharmacy one-to-one counselling were all included.
Another group of patients was encouraged to take their own action through 12 vouchers that gave them free entrance to a local fitness centre.
After 12 weeks, it was found that participants achieved weight loss across all programmes, with the average Weight Watchers attendee losing 4.4 kg and the average general practice attendee losing 1.4 kg.
The primary care programmes were no better than the control group at 12 weeks.
After one year, statistically significant weight loss occurred in all groups except the one-to-one programmes in general practice and pharmacy settings.
Weight Watchers was the only programme to achieve significantly greater weight loss than the control group.
All groups had increased their physical activity, although the smallest rise was among those in the general practice programme.
The highest attendance rate was in Weight Watchers and the lowest for the primary care programmes.
The primary care programmes were also the most costly to provide.
“Our findings suggest that a 12-week group-based dedicated programme of weight management can result in clinically useful amounts of weight loss that are sustained at one year,” say the authors.
“Commercially provided weight management services are more effective and cheaper than primary care-based services led by specially trained staff, which are ineffective.”
In an accompanying editorial, nutrition experts Helen Truby and Maxine Bonham at Monash University in Australia said the NHS should be mindful of the level of investment needed to develop its own expert workforce to manage complex obesity.
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