Psychological Impact of a “Health-at-Every-Size” Intervention on Weight-Preoccupied Overweight/Obese Women

Abstract

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.

Review Article Relationships between intuitive eating and health indicators: literature review

“…Crerand et al (27) , for example, found that the 'dieting' group, which included those following either a meal replacement diet or a balanced deficit diet, scored significantly better on the depression index compared with the IE group at 40 weeks post-treatment. In the longer term, however, the IE participants continued to show improvements whereas others regressed (26,29) . Crerand et al (27) hypothesised that the increases in psychological health among the dieting group were most likely due to weight loss, which would most likely be regained over time, whereas those among the non-diet group were likely due to attitudinal shifts, which are likely to last longer.…”

“…These latter approaches, however, generally argue that one can be healthy regardless of (over)weight and often address prejudice against overweight or obese people (26)(27)(28)(29) . Intuitive eating, in contrast, usually omits discussion of body weight or whether attaining a 'normal' weight is one of its goals.…”

“…The two out of eight studies that found weight reduction are limited by inadequate sample size (eight per group) (34) , lack of a control group (19) and very short follow-up periods (19,34) . However, there is some evidence that whereas traditional dieting results in initial weight loss followed by weight regain, an IE programme may assist in weight maintenance (26,(28)(29)(30)35,36) . Moreover, completion of an IE programme may result in weight loss (37) .…”

“…Six of the clinical studies (19,26,27,29,30,35) , five of which are RCT, and eight of the cross-sectional survey studies (13,14,(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)41) investigate this connection.…”

Weight stigma is stressful. A review of evidence for the Cyclic Obesity/Weight-Based Stigma model

“…Some fat acceptance interventions, notably size acceptance interventions such as those based on the Health at Every Size movement, have shown to improve health even in the absence of weight loss, and are therefore a promising tool (Bacon, 2010;Bacon, Stern, Van Loan, & Keim, 2005;Carroll, Borkoles, & Polman, 2007;Provencher et al, 2009). Similar interventions have also yielded positive weight (Anglin, 2012;Gagnon-Girouard et al, 2010;Lillis, Hayes, Bunting, & Masuda, 2009;Rapoport, Clark, & Wardle, 2000;Tanco, Linden, & Earle, 1998), fitness (Carrier, Steinhardt, & Bowman, 1994) and psychological outcomes (Ciliska, 1998;Gagnon-Girouard et al, 2010;Lillis et al, 2009;Omichinksi & Harrison, 1995;Tanco et al, 1998). However, some interventions that target weight stigma have found no significant benefits, such as one that targeted internalized weight bias, which found no benefit over an environmental modification and habit formation disruption intervention (Carels et al, 2014), and some longitudinal studies found that higher weight stigma is associated with better weight loss outcomes (e.g., Latner, Wilson, Jackson, & Stunkard, 2009).…”