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 Based on a U.S. survey, researchers had originally reported in JAMA
that the proportion of adults who are overweight and obese surged
from 53% to 66% over roughly the past three decades. They also said
that over the same period, the proportion of overweight and obese
adults trying to lose weight dropped from 56% to 49%.
But today the authors retracted their paper, noting that they had
failed to account for a change in how the survey asked about weight
loss efforts starting in 1999. Once researchers accounted for the
change in survey questions, they calculated that the proportion of
overweight and obese adults actually rose to 58% by the end of the
study period.
Furthermore, "It looks like the proportion of adults trying to lose
weight increased slightly," said senior study author Jian Zhang, a
public health researcher at Georgia Southern University in
Statesboro, in an email to Reuters Health.
Many news outlets, including Reuters, had reported on the
now-retracted study. (https://reut.rs/2A4IIdY)
"However," Zhang pointed out, "adults today are actually heavier
than their counterparts interviewed decades ago. After we
mathematically removed the effects from the increased body weight,
we found that for overweight adults with exactly the same body
weight, adults (surveyed) recently were less likely to have made
efforts to lose weight compared to their counterparts (surveyed)
decades ago."
The current analysis shares some limitations with the original
retracted paper.
Chief among them is that surveying people about their weight and any
efforts to shed excess pounds can paint an unreliable picture of how
many Americans are obese or trying to lose weight. That's because
many people report their weight as lower than it really is, and also
report losing more weight than they actually have.
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Surveys by nature also aren't controlled experiments designed to
prove whether or how any specific weight loss efforts might directly
result in people shedding excess pounds.
Doctors often advise people to eat less and exercise more when they
want to lose weight, but this can be easier said than done and may
not always produce sufficient or lasting weight loss. Weight-loss
medications or surgeries may also be an option for some obese
patients.
All too often, people who lose weight end up gaining at least some
of it back, regardless of the method of weight loss they use.
However, even the revised analysis published today suggests that
millions of Americans are still trying to lose weight, said Susan
Roberts, a nutrition researcher at Tufts University in Boston who
wasn't involved in the study.
"Obesity is a huge problem still, continuing to get worse, and
people recognize that and are trying to lose weight," Roberts said
by email. "I think the scientific community needs to provide better
ways to help people, it is not that people are unmotivated but that
it is hard with current methods."
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2A5UJjf
JAMA 2018.
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