Left to your own devices: can online weight loss programs work?
Obesity is considered the sixth leading cause of mortality in the world today according to the World Health Organization, highlighting its transformation into a global health pandemic. It is second only to smoking in the number of preventable deaths in Australia and the levels of obesity and being overweight and its co-morbidities are rising every year. Can online weight loss programs work to help people address this growing issue?
Doctors, site lack of time, training and resources, staff support as common reasons why they fail to treat obesity effectively. Patients found the main obstacles to losing weight was lack of time and motivation, finding accurate information and working long hours. Perhaps the answer to this mis-match is by going online to manage this world epidemic. But with the barrage of diet and exercise online programs out there, what therapies work?
Online CBT Weight Loss Programs
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is considered one of the 1st line treatments for weight management as recommended by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and has been proven to be effective in many studies. Online Health promotion with a focus on prevention and disease management including weight has also been proven to be an effective strategy in promoting self efficacy, motivation and confidence. An online CBT weight management program can be offered over the Internet to provide participants the ability to manage their weight anywhere in the world, including at home and at their own time.
Addressing your weight online
There are various online weight management programmes especially from the big commercial groups like “The Biggest Loser” , “Weight Watchers” and also many smaller companies but there is no current programmes that utilize a medically evidence based approach such as CBT. It has been found that respondents who received computer- based online learning such as CBT were just as likely to make behavioural changes compared to if they received face-to-face therapy.
e-health is now being used in all areas of health and disease prevention and has been shown to effectively manage chronic medical conditions such as weight. Our program here at Medical & Mind Weight Loss combines already proven methods of CBT for weight loss as well as emerging evidence of the effectiveness of online programs to battle the issue of weight loss and obesity. Now can you be left to your own devices?