The BBC diet trials

doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7553.1284

BMJ 2006;332:1284-1285 (3 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7553.1284

Editorial

The BBC diet trials

Reality television and academic researchers jointly tackle theweight loss industry

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In 2000, 46% of women and 33% of men in the United States weretrying to lose weight¹; they spent an estimated $34.7bn (£18.5bn; ${euro}$ 27bn) on weight loss products and programmes.² Did they gettheir money's worth? Unfortunately, the answer is probably no.The prevalence of obesity increased from 30.5% to 32.2% between1999 and 2004 in the United States,³ and expenditures on healthcare associated with excess body weight exceeded $56bn.⁴ Further,the Federal Trade Commission found four years ago that 40% ofall advertisements for weight loss products made false or misleadingclaims.²

There has been little rigorous scientific research on the efficacyand safety of commercial products and programmes⁵—butin this week's BMJ Truby and colleagues report their findingsfrom such a study (p 1309).⁶ Participants were recruited bynational advertisements to take part in a reality TV series,BBC Diet Trials. . . [Full text of this article]

David Arterburn, assistant investigator

Group Health Center for Health Studies,1730 Minor Avenue, Suite 1600, Seattle, WA 98101, USA
(arterburn.d@ghc.org)

CiteULike

Complore

Connotea

Del.icio.us Add to Digg

Digg

StumbleUpon Add to Technorati

Technorati What's this?

Relevant Article

Randomised controlled trial of four commercial weight loss programmes in the UK: initial findings from the BBC "diet trials": Helen Truby, Sue Baic, Anne deLooy, Kenneth R Fox, M Barbara E Livingstone, Catherine M Logan, Ian A Macdonald, Linda M Morgan, Moira A Taylor, and D Joe Millward
BMJ 2006 332: 1309-1314. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]