Browsing by Author "Ekholm, Linda"

Background: Overweight and obesity are major global health concerns causing millions of annual deaths worldwide. Although there is much knowledge of preventing overweight and losing weight, these are proven to be extremely challenging in practice. The knowledge of differences in weight loss success between individuals is still incomplete. The association between psychological factors such as stress and eating behaviour aspects and weight is quite well known but the association between these psychological factors and successful weight loss is somewhat incomplete. Aim: The primary aim of this study was to examine the association between stress and psychological eating behaviour aspects (cognitive restraint, disinhibition and hunger) and weight loss results during an eight week low calorie diet among persons with an elevated type 2 diabetes risk. The secondary aim was to examine the association between the quality of food intake prior to weight loss, age, gender, body composition and BMI and weight loss results. Methods: This study was based on the internationsl PREVIEW study’s Finnish material and the PREVIEW study’s eight week low calorie diet phase. The participants (n=260) had an elevated type 2 diabetes risk. Perceived stress was assessed with the PSS and psychological eating behaviour with the TFEQ questionnaires. The quality of nutrient intake was assessed using four days food diaries (n=79). The nutrient intake was assessed with the Aivo Diet recording program (Aivo Finland Oy, Turku, Finland). Statistical analyses were performed with the IBM SPSS Statistics 24 program. The independent samples t-test was used analysing statistically significant differences between two groups. One-way analysis of variance was used examining differences between BMI classes. When examining several classified factors together two-way analysis of variance was used. Nutrient intakes prior to weight loss were assessed with the energy adjusted residual method. The association between variables and weight loss results were examined with Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients. Results: Cognitive restraint was negatively associated with lost weight (p<0,001). Baseline BMI and waist circumference was positively associated with lost weight (p<0,001). Age was negatively associated with lost weight (p=0,047) and fat percentage was negatively associated with weight loss percentage (p<0,001). There were no association between the other psychological or physiological factors and weight loss. Nutrient intake prior to weight loss was not associated with lost weight or weight loss percentage. Energy intake prior to weight loss was positively associated with lost weight (p=0,003). Conclusions: The results of this study do not explain the great variation in lost weight during the eight week low calorie diet. Individual differences in realisation of the diet may be a fundamental explanation to the variation. Differences in personal biological factors such as genetics and gut microbiota might also explain the variations. In order to make more distinct conclusions concerning the association between stress and psychological eating behaviours, physiological factors and nutrient intake prior to weight loss and weight loss during low calorie diets requires more research.