Telehealth yields weight-loss results during pandemic similar to in-person interventions
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Among adults with obesity participating in a telehealth intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic, weight loss was not significantly inferior to that seen with face-to-face programs, according to study data published in Obesity.
“The take-home message of this study is that our gold standard behavioral interventions can be effectively delivered via telehealth/videoconferencing technologies,” Katherine M. Ross, PhD, MPH, associate professor in the department of clinical and health psychology at the University of Florida, told Healio. “Participants can achieve clinically meaningful outcomes even during a pandemic that has otherwise negatively impacted health behaviors.”
Ross and colleagues aimed to compare amount of weight loss achieved amid the shift to virtual and telehealth weight-loss programs due to the COVID-19 pandemic with results of traditional “gold standard” programs conducted in person.
The researchers analyzed data from 147 adults with obesity (mean age, 49.2 years; mean BMI, 36.1 kg/m2) who participated in a previous randomized controlled trial with two cohorts following a 16-week Diabetes Prevention Program lifestyle intervention. The first group took part in person and then transitioned to virtual via Zoom in week 11, and the second attended completely by videoconference. The researchers used a clinically relevant noninferiority margin of 2.5% to determine whether virtual weight-loss results were inferior to the standard 8% losses typical of in-person weight-loss interventions.
Seventy percent of participants lost 5% or more of their baseline weight, and 26.3% lost 10% or more. At 16 weeks, participants lost an average of 7.37 kg from baseline, representing a reduction of 7.2% of weight from baseline, which was within the margin for noninferiority (P < .001).
The researchers reported that in addition to successful weight loss, the intervention offered flexibility, such as individual problem-solving, goal setting and regular discussions of barriers, which benefited participants navigating COVID-19-related challenges.
“For patients considering enrolling in these interventions, results suggest that these interventions can be effective and that sustainable changes in eating and exercise habits can be made despite ongoing challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Ross said.
Ross noted that future studies should build on these results by including a more diverse group of participants.
“Our sample was primarily female, a majority of participants identified as non-Hispanic white, and education and income ranges were relatively high,” Ross said. “It is particularly important to understand whether telehealth similarly benefits individuals from populations disproportionally burdened by obesity, such as Black and Hispanic adults and adults from lower-income households, especially given that these groups were also disproportionally burdened by COVID-19 and pandemic-related changes in income, work status and caregiving roles.”
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