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. 2014 Nov 14;9(11):e113164.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0113164. eCollection 2014.

Are breaks in daily self-weighing associated with weight gain?

Affiliations

Are breaks in daily self-weighing associated with weight gain?

Elina E Helander et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Regular self-weighing is linked to successful weight loss and maintenance. However, an individual's self-weighing frequency typically varies over time. This study examined temporal associations between time differences of consecutive weight measurements and the corresponding weight changes by analysing longitudinal self-weighing data, including 2,838 weight observations from 40 individuals attending a health-promoting programme. The relationship between temporal weighing frequency and corresponding weight change was studied primarily using a linear mixed effects model. Weight change between consecutive weight measurements was associated with the corresponding time difference (β = 0.021% per day, p<0.001). Weight loss took place during periods of daily self-weighing, whereas breaks longer than one month posed a risk of weight gain. The findings emphasize that missing data in weight management studies with a weight-monitoring component may be associated with non-adherence to the weight loss programme and an early sign of weight gain.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Self-weighing patterns in time as a number of subjects involved in weight-monitoring and the number of weekly weight measurements.
The left y axis (red) corresponds to the number of participants that is still involved in self-monitoring and the red line shows the participant numbers for each week since starting the self-monitoring. The right y axis (black) corresponds to the number of measurements per week. Black dashed and solid lines show the weekly self-monitoring frequency average from two subgroups: subjects that are still actively self-monitoring (dashed line) and all study subjects (solid line).
Figure 2
Figure 2. Mean weight change (circle) and the 95% confidence intervals (horizontal lines) in different self-weighing categories.
The data were gathered from 40 subjects: n denotes the number of observations in each category and N denotes for the number of subjects that had at least one observation in a category.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Mean weight change per day (circle) and the 95% confidence intervals (horizontal lines) in different self-weighing categories.
The data were gathered from 40 subjects: n denotes the number observations in each category and N denotes for the number of subjects that had at least one observation in a category.

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