Odds are much higher for obese men than for obese women.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: A new study indicates the odds of reaching normal weight are much slimmer than previously thought for people who are obese.
The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, shows the odds of a clinically obese person achieving normal weight without surgical interventions are just 1 in 210 for men and 1 in 124 for women in a given year, reported CBS News.
Among the most morbidly obese, the chances were even worse.
The study was based on analysis of more than 278,000 people from the UK’s Clinical Practice Research database, tracked between 2004 and 2014. They found that the higher a person’s BMI, the lower the likelihood that they would ever achieve normal body weight, as defined by the standard charts. Among the morbidly obese, only 1 in 1,290 men and 1 in 677 women managed to do it.
“What our findings suggest is that current strategies used to tackle obesity are not helping the majority of obese patients to lose weight and maintain that weight loss,” lead researcher Alison Fildes, a research psychologist at University College London, told HealthDay.
Fildes said the figures for losing 5 percent of body weight were more encouraging — one in 12 men and one in 10 women managed this over a year, although most had regained the weight within five years, reported the BBC.
“Research to develop new and more effective approaches to obesity management is urgently required,” the authors of the study concluded in their assessment of the data they garnered.