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PROVENCHER, VÉ RONIQUE, CATHERINE BÉ GIN, ANGELO TREMBLAY, LYNE MONGEAU, SONIA BOIVIN, AND SIMONE LEMIEUX. Short-term effects of a "Health-At-Every-Size" approach on eating behaviors and appetite ratings. Obesity. 2007;15:957-966. Objective: To assess the effects of a "Health-At-EverySize" (HAES) intervention on eating behaviors and appetite ratings in 144 premenopausal overweight women. Research Methods and Procedures: Women were randomly assigned to one of the 3 groups: HAES group, social support (SS) group, and control group (N ϭ 48 in each group). Interventions were conducted over a 4-month period, and measurements were taken before and after this period. Eating behaviors (cognitive dietary restraint, disinhibition, and susceptibility to hunger) were evaluated by the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire. Appetite ratings (desire to eat, hunger, fullness, and prospective food consumption) were assessed by visual analogue scales before and after a standardized breakfast. Results: More important decreases in susceptibility to hunger and external hunger were observed in the HAES group when compared with the SS group (p ϭ 0.05, for susceptibility to hunger) and the control group (p ϭ 0.02 and p ϭ 0.005, for susceptibility to hunger and external hunger, respectively). In addition, women from the HAES group had more important decreases in postprandial area under the curve for desire to eat (p ϭ 0.02) and hunger (p ϭ 0.04) when compared with the control group. The change in the desire to eat noted in the HAES group was also different from the one observed in SS group (p ϭ 0.02). Women from the HAES group experienced significant weight loss at 4 months (Ϫ1.6 Ϯ 2.5 kg, p Ͻ 0.0001), which did not differ significantly from the SS and control groups (p ϭ 0.09). An increase in flexible restraint was significantly related to a greater weight loss in both HAES and SS groups (r ϭ Ϫ0.39, p Ͻ 0.01; and r ϭ Ϫ0.37, p Ͻ 0.05, respectively). A decrease in habitual susceptibility to disinhibition was also associated with a greater weight loss in HAES and control groups (r ϭ 0.31, p Ͻ 0.05; and r ϭ 0.44, p Ͻ 0.05, respectively). Discussion: These results suggest that a HAES intervention could have significant effects on eating behaviors and appetite ratings in premenopausal overweight women, when compared with an SS intervention or a control group.

The aim of the present study was to assess the impact of a “Health-at-every-size” (HAES) intervention on psychological variables and body weight the weight-preoccupied overweight/obese women. Those women were randomized into three groups (1) HAES, (2) social support (SS), (3) waiting-list (WL), and were tested at baseline, post-treatment and six-month and one-year follow-ups. All participants presented significant psychological improvement no matter if they received the HAES intervention or not. However, even if during the intervention, the three groups showed improvements, during the follow up, the HAES group continued to improve while the other groups did not, even sometimes experiencing some deterioration. Furthermore, in the HAES group only, participant's weight maintenance 12 months after the intervention was related to their psychological improvement (quality of life, body dissatisfaction, and binge eating) during the intervention. Thus, even if, in the short-term, our study did not show distinctive effects of the HAES intervention compared to SS and WL on all variables, in the long-term, HAES group seemed to present a different trajectory as psychological variables and body weight are maintained or continue to improve, which was not the case in other groups. These differential long-term effects still need to be documented and further empirically demonstrated.

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