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. 2021 Sep;26(11):2056-2061.
doi: 10.1177/1359105319887800. Epub 2019 Nov 21.

Predicting program attendance and weight loss in obesity interventions: Do triggering events help?

Alena Borgatti  1 , Ziting Tang  2 , Fei Tan  2 , Sarah-Jeanne Salvy  3 , Gareth Dutton  1
Affiliations

Predicting program attendance and weight loss in obesity interventions: Do triggering events help?

Alena Borgatti et al. J Health Psychol. 2021 Sep.

Abstract

Medical events that "trigger" motivation to lose weight may improve treatment outcomes compared to non-medical or no triggering events. However, previous findings include only long-term successful participants, not those initiating treatment. The current study compared those with medical triggering events or non-medical triggering events to no triggering events on attendance and weight loss during a weight management program. Medical-triggering-event participants lost 1.8 percent less weight (p = 0.03) than no-triggering-event participants. Non-medical-triggering-event participants attended 1.45 more sessions (p = 0.04) and were 1.83 times more likely to complete the program (p = 0.03) than no-triggering-event participants. These findings fail to support the benefit of medical triggering events when beginning treatment for obesity.

Keywords: medical event; motivation; obesity; treatment; weight loss.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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