According to Rena Wing, professor of psychiatry and human behavior at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and director of the Weight Control & Diabetes Research Center at The Miriam Hospital, people who are most successful in preventing weight gain, and dieters who lose weight and keep the pounds off, have made major changes in their in diet and exercise routines.
Using new research findings, Wing will make her case for big behavioral changes to stave off weight gain at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific society.
At the meeting, held in Boston, Wing took part in a Feb. 17, 2008 symposium titled “Fighting the Global Obesity Epidemic: Small Steps or Big Changes".
“We live in an obesogenic environment that relies heavily on fast food, automobiles, and remote controls – all which can be labeled as ‘toxic' to maintaining a healthy body weight,” Wing said. “With our research, we want to determine the most successful strategies for maintaining a nor-mal weight in this toxic environment. We've found that bigger changes are needed for success.”
Along with James Hill of the University of Colorado Denver, Wing founded the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), the largest prospective investigation of long-term successful weight loss maintenance in the world. The registry includes data on more than 5,000 men and women who have, on average, lost 70 pounds and kept the weight off for six years.
At the symposium, Wing and Hill will present alternative views of how to best address the obe-sity epidemic. The crisis is worldwide in scope – health experts call it “globesity” – with more than 1 billion adults overweight and at least 300 million of them clinically obese.
Hill will argue that small daily changes, say using the stairs, are enough to prevent incremental weight gain that can lead to obesity. Wing, however, will make the case that much larger life-style changes – say exercising 60 to 90 minutes a day – are needed to prevent weight regain.