Among The Millions Trying To Lose Weight? Lean On Each Other, UF Researchers Suggest

December 6, 2001

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — With the holiday snack season in high gear, many people are bound to be wondering what they can do in the new year to atone for all the eggnog, cookies and fudge they’ve been consuming.

University of Florida researchers have some words of wisdom for the dieting masses: Consider seeking help through a group weight-loss program.

“In two recent studies, we found that people who participated in groups did quite well, even if they had been uncomfortable with the idea of being in a group,” said Michael G. Perri, a professor of clinical and health psychology at UF’s College of Health Professions. “We also found that one particular style of group treatment, in which participants offer each other ideas on how to solve dieting problems, worked particularly well for maintaining weight loss.”

Finding ways to lose excess weight and keep it off is of growing importance to millions of Americans. During the 1990s, the share of the population classified as obese climbed sharply from 12 percent to 19.8 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An additional 33 percent are overweight.

Extra pounds are more than a cosmetic concern; they increase the risks of a host of health problems, including heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer.

“At any given time, a high percentage of men and women will tell you they’re trying to lose weight,” said Perri, whose career has focused on scientifically investigating diet and exercise strategies. “Most people try to deal with weight problems on their own, but groups can be a good source of support and motivation. You can see that you’re not the only one with this problem.”

In one study, Perri and his colleagues enrolled 75 overweight people who had expressed a clear preference for either individual or group therapy. But only half of the participants were assigned to the form of treatment they preferred. For both forms of treatment, clinical and health psychology doctoral students led weekly sessions in which participants were trained in techniques for monitoring diet and exercise, and also were taught about nutrition and calorie expenditure.

“Our hypothesis had been that if you give people the style of treatment they want, they’ll do better, but that turned out not to be the case,” Perri said.

The average weight loss for group members was higher – no matter what their treatment preferences had been. Group members lost an average of 24.2 pounds during the six-month study, compared with a 20-pound average loss for those in individual therapy.

“This finding that group therapy is equivalent to, and maybe better than, individual therapy, suggests that the group approach may be a desirable, low-cost first line of clinical care for those who need to lose weight,” said Perri, who noted that it would be much more costly to pay a therapist to lead many individual sessions rather than one group.

Details of the research were published earlier this year in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

In another study, involving 80 obese women, Perri examined whether people would maintain their weight loss more successfully if they had ongoing contact with therapists. He compared three groups of people who had participated in a five-month weight-loss program. One group received no follow-up care. A second group received biweekly classroom-style training on weight management for a year. A third group received a year of biweekly “problem-solving therapy” in which participants were encouraged to offer suggestions to help tackle a specific difficulty one of them was encountering.

At the end of the follow-up program, group members who had completed the problem-solving therapy actually had shed an additional 3 pounds beyond the initial 20.4 pound average weight loss achieved by the group.

“People seemed to really like spending an entire session devoted to one person, to finding out how that person was doing and trying to help her out,” Perri said.

The other two groups didn’t fare so well. By the end of the year, those who received no follow-up care had, on average, regained more than half of the 21-pound average loss. Those who received classroom-style training didn’t regain quite so much – almost 6 pounds of their 18.5 pound loss – but the difference between these two groups was not statistically significant.

“We’re aware that group therapy may not be one size that fits all,” Perri said. “There may be private people who want to be in one-on-one counseling or others who have problems they don’t want to discuss in front of a group, such as binge eating or marital troubles. But groups can help people to see that it’s normal to run into problems in trying to manage weight. And the greater the number of possible solutions that come from the group, the greater the chance that one of them will be a good one.”

Perri’s research is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health.