Strategies successfully reduce weight gain in young adults

NIH | MAY 12, 2016

A team led by Dr. Rena Wing of Brown University and Miriam Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, examined the effectiveness of interventions to prevent or reduce weight gain in young adults.

Frequent weighing and daily small changes to diet and activity can help prevent weight gain. Charles Mellin: Portrait of a Gentleman.

The researchers recruited about 600 adults, ages 18 to 35. Half of the young adults had normal weights and half were overweight.

Participants randomly assigned to a “small-changes” group focused on making daily small changes in diet and physical activity to prevent weight gain. They were taught to make adjustments of about 100 calories a day through both their diet (select lower calorie drinks, reduce portion sizes) and physical activity (use stairs, park further away from stores when shopping).

Participants assigned to a “large-changes” group focused on losing 5-10 pounds during the initial 4 months to create a buffer against expected weight gain over time. They were instructed to reduce their food intake by 500 to 1000 calories a day, and to gradually increase moderate-intensity physical activity to 250 minutes a week.

Over the 2- to 3-year follow-up, control group members gained an average of half a pound. Participants in the small-change and large-change groups lost an average of 1.2 and 5.2 pounds, respectively. During this time, about 17% of control group members became obese, while only about 8% in both intervention groups did.

Weight gain in young adults is likely related to the many changes occurring—school-to-work transitions and events such as pregnancy,” Wing says. “These new self-regulation approaches, which can easily and cost-effectively be shared to help prevent weight gain in young adults, could have a significant impact on our public health.”

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