Daily Self-Weighing to Control Body Weight in Adults

Carly R. Pacanowski, Fredrik Bertz and David A. Levitsky

SAGE Open, 2014, vol. 4, issue 4, 2158244014556992

Abstract: The objective of this study is to review the history of daily self-weighing for weight control, discuss the possibility that self-weighing may cause adverse psychological symptoms, and propose mechanisms that explain how self-weighing facilitates weight control. A systematic forward (citation) tracking approach has been employed in this study. In the early literature, experimental tests did not demonstrate a benefit of adding daily self-weighing to traditional behavioral modification for weight loss. More recent studies have shown that daily self-weighing combined with personalized electronic feedback can produce and sustain weight loss with and without a traditional weight loss program. Daily self-weighing appears to be effective in preventing age-related weight gain. Apart from these experimental findings, there is considerable agreement that the frequency of self-weighing correlates with success in losing weight and sustaining the weight loss. The early literature suggested frequent self-weighing may be associated with negative psychological effects. However, more recent experimental trials do not substantiate such a causal relationship. In conclusion, daily self-weighing may be a useful strategy for certain adults to prevent weight gain, lose weight, or prevent weight regain after loss. More research is needed to better understand the role of different types of feedback, who benefits most from self-weighing, and at what frequency.

Keywords: self-weighing; weight loss; adults; behavioral strategies; obesity; psychology; body weight (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244014556992 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:4:y:2014:i:4:p:2158244014556992

DOI: 10.1177/2158244014556992

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in SAGE Open
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().