Support groups aid weight loss

Yesterday, on the Healthier Weight news page, I came across an article which reports on a study conducted into the beneficial effects to bariatric surgery patients of attending support groups. Although I downloaded the whole report, I cannot find the link to the full document again - so the link above just goes to the publisher's web site where you can find a brief summary. The full reference, for the more academically-minded! is:

Orth, W. S., Madan, A. K., Taddeucci, R. J., Coday, M. and Tichansky, D. S. (2008). Support group meeting attendance is asociated with better weight loss. Obesity Surgery 18, 391-394.

The study looked at the post-surgery weight loss of 46 people who had undergone gastric bypass surgery. Half of this group regularly attended a support group and the other half did not. On average, people in the group who did attend a support group lost 42% of their BMI, compared with 32% among the non-attendees.

It seems that there was no practical difference between the two groups (the attendees did not live closer to the support group location, for example). But there were significant differences in attitude towards the value of aftercare services such as support groups. Not surprisingly, those who attended support groups thought they were very useful - particularly if the surgeon was able to be present, while the non-attendees didn't hold support groups in such high regard.

The range of topics discussed at support group meetings was quite varied and included adjusting after surgery, diet, exercise, dealing with plateaus, nutrition, cosmetic surgery, and medical problems. Patients listed some of the factors that would encourage attendance and these included holding the meetings at different times or locations, more or better structure, food samples, the physician being present, and being reminded about the meetings!

Although the authors acknowledged that the sample size was small (n=46), there was, nevertheless, significant evidence of enhanced weight loss among those attending support groups compared with those who do not. Therefore, the importance of participating in such aftercare should be stressed before surgery and further encouraged during post-surgery follow-up visits.

So there you go. I attend all of my suport group meetings so I don't need to worry any more about failure...........!!! If only it were that simple. Still, it surely helps.