Assessing the effect of an intensive lifestyle intervention on healthy and unhealthy behaviors in daily life for individuals with overweight and obesity.

Abstract submission – Annual Dutch Diabetes Research Meeting

Authors + Affiliations (for presenting and last author)

Jikke Hesen¹ – joint first author

Eva Vanbrabant¹ – joint first author

Codrin Mironiuc

Gijs Goossens

Lotte Lemmens

Yuliya Shapovalova

Suzan Jordan

Anne Roefs¹

Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands

Title Assessing the effect of an intensive lifestyle intervention on healthy and unhealthy behaviors in daily life for individuals with overweight and obesity.

Background

Obesity remains a major global health issue, and the effectiveness of treatment is not optimal. Currently, first lineok treatment for obesity is a standardized lifestyle intervention. Importantly, (factors affecting) lifestyle can vary greatly from person to person. This study aims to gain insight into the large variability in the lifestyle of people with overweight and obesity, and how lifestyle is affected by an intensive lifestyle intervention. This study measures (factors affecting) lifestyle in daily life using Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA).

Methods

In this study, ultimately 200 participants with overweight and 200 with obesity will be included. Participants are randomized to an intensive lifestyle intervention (ILI) or an information control condition (INFO). At baseline and post-intervention, participants complete 3 weeks of EMA (8 moments per day), and body weight and waist-to-hip ratio are (self-)measured. The EMA protocol includes items on mood states, social context, sleep, eating and drinking behavior, and physical activity. Preliminary time series data of 60 participants will be analyzed to examine the effects of the ILI versus INFO condition. We will focus on inter-group differences and inter-individual variability.

Results

Preliminary analyses of baseline time-series data on lifestyle have shown large heterogeneity both within and across weight categories. For example, it was not the case that overweight or obesity were consistently associated with more instances of unhealthy eating. We expect daily healthy behavior to increase and daily unhealthy behavior to decrease, and we expect this effect to be stronger in the ILI condition than in the INFO condition. Besides a between group effect, we expect large inter-individual variation within groups after the intervention in line with the inter-individual variation we have seen in the baseline data.

Discussion/conclusion

The inter-individual heterogeneity in the measured lifestyle variables, both at baseline and post-intervention, calls for a personalized approach to lifestyle interventions as treatment for obesity.

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