Obesity Abstracts

Background: Obesity interventions mainly focus on weight loss. However, weight loss maintenance (WLM) is the greater challenge as 80% of individuals who lose weight regain the lost weight within a year (Wing & Phelan, 2005). Knowledge and beliefs about WLM influence behaviour and are important factors in distinguishing between successful and unsuccessful weight loss maintainers. However, there are currently no validated scales available that measure WLM knowledge.

Methods: To address this gap, a novel 40-item scale was developed to measure accuracy of knowledge and beliefs regarding factors that influence WLM, specifically targeting nutrition, physical activity, weight monitoring, beliefs about weight management and obesity, hunger and caloric compensation. This study used a ‘think aloud’ method to assess the understanding and interpretation of the items. Sixteen participants (50% females; 28.69±S.D. 3.50 years; self-reported BMI 24.41± S.D. 2.66 kg/m²) verbalised their thoughts and answers while completing the scale in the laboratory. Data analysis aimed to identify any issues with item understanding and interpretation. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and data was coded to show issues per item. Issues were then categorised by themes.

Results: Most common issues encountered were related to the broadness, specificity and possible interpretations of the items. As a result, 23 of the items were reworded to address the issues raised in the interviews.

Conclusions: A novel scale has been developed to measure the accuracy of knowledge and beliefs about WLM. Following a ‘think aloud’ task the scale has been refined to improve understanding and interpretation of the items.

This scale will be validated to identify individuals at greatest risk of weight regain and identify the beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that need to be targeted in future WLM interventions.

Keywords: Weight loss maintenance, nutrition, calorie balance