'Love your body' to lose weight
2011-07-19
(Press-News.org) Almost a quarter of men and women in England and over a third of adults in America are obese. Obesity increases the risk of diabetes and heart disease and can significantly shorten a person's life expectancy. New research published by BioMed Central's open access journal International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity shows that improving body image can enhance the effectiveness of weight loss programs based on diet and exercise.
Researchers from the Technical University of Lisbon and Bangor University enrolled overweight and obese women on a year-long weight loss program. Half the women were given general health information about good nutrition, stress management, and the importance of looking after yourself. The other half attended 30 weekly group sessions (the intervention plan) where issues such as exercise, emotional eating, improving body image and the recognition of, and how to overcome, personal barriers to weight loss and lapses from the diet were discussed.
On the behavioral intervention plan women found that the way they thought about their body improved and that concerns about body shape and size were reduced. Compared to the control group they were better able to self-regulate their eating and they lost much more weight, losing on average 7% of their starting weight compared to less than 2% for the control group.
Dr Teixeira from Technical University of Lisbon, who led the research, said, "Body image problems are very common amongst overweight and obese people, often leading to comfort eating and more rigid eating patterns, and are obstacles to losing weight. Our results showed a strong correlation between improvements in body image, especially in reducing anxiety about other peoples' opinions, and positive changes in eating behavior. From this we believe that learning to relate to your body in healthier ways is an important aspect of maintaining weight loss and should be addressed in every weight control program."
###
Notes to Editors
1. Body image change and improved eating self-regulation in a weight management intervention in women
Eliana V Carraca, Marlene N Silva, David Markland, Paulo N Vieira, Claudia S Minderico, Luis B Sardinha and Pedro J Teixeira
International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (in press)
Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.
Article citation and URL available on request at press@biomedcentral.com on the day of publication.
2. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (IJBNPA) is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal devoted to furthering the understanding of the behavioral aspects of diet and physical activity.
3. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector.
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2011-07-19
Some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals and is found exclusively in people outside Africa, according to an international team of researchers led by Damian Labuda of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Montreal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center. The research was published in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution.
"This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred," says Dr. Labuda. His team places the timing of such intimate contacts and/or family ties early on, probably at the crossroads ...
2011-07-19
July 17, 2011 – (BRONX, NY) – Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have developed the first fluorescent protein that enables scientists to clearly "see" the internal organs of living animals without the need for a scalpel or imaging techniques that can have side effects or increase radiation exposure.
The new probe could prove to be a breakthrough in whole-body imaging – allowing doctors, for example, to noninvasively monitor the growth of tumors in order to assess the effectiveness of anti-cancer therapies. In contrast to other body-scanning ...
2011-07-19
Using a technique known as thermochemical nanolithography (TCNL), researchers have developed a new way to fabricate nanometer-scale ferroelectric structures directly on flexible plastic substrates that would be unable to withstand the processing temperatures normally required to create such nanostructures.
The technique, which uses a heated atomic force microscope (AFM) tip to produce patterns, could facilitate high-density, low-cost production of complex ferroelectric structures for energy harvesting arrays, sensors and actuators in nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS) ...
2011-07-19
Japan's March 11 Tohoku Earthquake is among the strongest ever recorded, and because it struck one of the world's most heavily instrumented seismic zones, this natural disaster is providing scientists with a treasure trove of data on rare magnitude 9 earthquakes. Among the new information is what is believed to be the first study of how a shock this powerful affects the rock and soil beneath the surface.
Analyzing data from multiple measurement stations, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that the quake weakened subsurface materials by as much as ...
2011-07-19
MAYWOOD, Ill. -- Retired NFL football players are at higher risk for mild cognitive impairment, which can be a precursor to Alzheimer's disease, a Loyola University Health System study has found.
A screening survey of 513 retired players and their wives found that 35 percent of the players had scores suggesting possible mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Their average age was 61.
"It appears there may be a very high rate of cognitive impairment in these retired football players, compared to the general population in that age range," said neuropsychologist Christopher Randolph, ...
2011-07-19
PHILADELPHIA — The use of trastuzumab, chemotherapy and surgery among women with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer significantly improved survival from the time central nervous system metastases were diagnosed.
Based on these study results, lead researcher Adam Brufsky, M.D., Ph.D., said, "We clearly now know that these women should get trastuzumab and potentially chemotherapy, even if cancer spreads to the brain."
"Women with HER2-positive breast cancer have a reasonable chance of living a long time with their disease, and they should be given aggressive therapy ...
2011-07-19
1. Testing for the Lynch Syndrome in All Colorectal Cancer Patients Cost-effective
Relatives of Those Who Test Positive Are at Increased Risk and Should Also be Tested
The Lynch syndrome is the most common genetic cause of colorectal cancer and is also associated with endometrial and other types of cancer. While only three percent of colorectal cancer patients carry the gene, it has been suggested that testing for the Lynch syndrome in all patients newly diagnosed with colorectal cancer could help identify families at risk. Researchers used a computer model to estimate ...
2011-07-19
A landmark study by the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE) and the University of British Columbia (UBC) shows that patients in Africa receiving combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) for HIV can expect to live a near normal lifespan.
The study, published today in the prestigious Annals of Internal Medicine, is the first large-scale analysis of life expectancy outcomes in Africa for HIV patients on cART and shows significant variance between patient subgroups. Females have a significantly higher life expectancy than men, and in all participants, early initiation ...
2011-07-19
For the first time, scientists gathered oil and gas directly as it escaped from a deep ocean wellhead — that of the damaged Deepwater Horizon oil rig. What they found allows a better understanding of how pollution is partitioned and transported in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico and permits superior estimation of the environmental impact of escaping oil, allowing for a more precise evaluation of previously estimated repercussions on seafloor life in the future.
The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in April 2010 was both a human and an environmental catastrophe. ...
2011-07-19
A medicine designed to improve levels of "good" cholesterol may also help control blood sugar in people with diabetes who are taking cholesterol-lowering drugs, according to a new analysis in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Researchers made the finding while analyzing data from a clinical trial on the drug torcetrapib that was halted five years ago. Torcetrapib is a cholesterol ester transfer protein (CETP) inhibitor, a type of drug that increases levels of high-density lipoproteins (HDLs, or "good" cholesterol).
The study found that 6,661 people ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] 'Love your body' to lose weight
