NoHoW research in weight loss maintenance
Learning more about weight management
One of the key challenges in helping people with weight maintenance is understanding what they think about weight loss, how they lose weight and what support they need to maintain their weight loss in the long term. There isn’t much solid scientific evidence available, so one of the first tasks in NoHoW was to carry out a large, population-based survey. Read more on the NoHoW website
We worked on a longitudinal survey of 3,000 successful weight maintainers, recruited from Slimming World. In this survey, we used members’ weight loss history and their survey responses over the course of a year to learn more about long-term weight maintenance. The results of this survey will help us to interpret the results of the NoHoW trial.
Building the NoHoW Toolkit
To build the Toolkit, the team gathered together the best scientific evidence from the literature and developed a programme for weight management, targeted towards people who have already lost weight and want to learn how to maintain their weight loss. The web-based Toolkit includes educational content and allows users to track their weight, physical activity and sleep using self-tracking technologies (activity trackers, smart scales).
Testing the Toolkit
Now that the NoHoW Toolkit has been used in the real world, we look forward to sharing results of the trial. To test the Toolkit, we recruited participants from the UK, Denmark and Portugal to test it out. The trial focused on adults who had lost at least 5% of their body weight in the last 12 months, and were still below their highest weight.
The NoHoW Toolkit helped was designed to help participants learn how to maintain their weight loss. A list of open access publications related to the NoHow project and their summaries can be found here
NoHoW Consortium Meets in Aarhus
The NoHoW team met September 17-18 in Aarhus, Denmark to share recent updates on the NoHoW Toolkit and trial results. Colleagues involved in each phase of the project shared the most recent developments in these areas and project publications were also discussed. Initial NoHoW project results are now available to the team, stay tuned for results! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep in touch.
DSAF Spring Meetings
NoHoW featured at the Spring Meeting of the Danish Association for the Study of Obesity (04 June 2019, Copenhagen), where the focus was Maintaining Weight Loss – Is It Possible? Two meetings were held in different parts of the country. The forthcoming November meeting of DSAF focuses on “obesity from primary prevention through bariatric surgery.”
At the Copenhagen meeting, Coordinator Prof. Berit Heitmann presented results on weight maintenance from NoHoW. A second Danish-led EU-funded project on effective lifestyle for the prevention of type 2 diabetes in people with overweight and pre-diabetes (PREVIEW) was presented by Prof. Anne Raben.
The presentations were followed by a panel discussion on whether long-term weight loss maintenance is possible.
Parker Institute presents NoHoW results
Coordinator Berit Heitmann presented ‘Latest results from the NoHoW intervention‘ at the Parker Institute Staff Meeting on 11 June 2019. Professor Heitmann is Head of the Research Unit for Dietary Studies at the institute. Overall, the institute aims to improve the status of health in the population via prevention at all levels, increasing knowledge of disease mechanisms and creating evidence-based treatments.
7th Self-Determination Theory Conference
Between May 21st – 24th, NoHoW researchers participated in the 7th Self-Determination Theory Conference in Egmond aan Zee, Netherlands. Held every three years, this meeting brings together leading motivational experts and scholars come together to offer inspiring, insightful presentations and workshops.
The 2019 SDT Conference focused on the integration of Self-Determination Theory with New Information and Communications Technologies. Several invited speakers from digital industries participated and shared their challenges and the strategies they use to introduce behavioural science expertise to highly specialised technical teams focused primarily on commercialisation and profitability of digital products. There was agreement on one key theme: digital behaviour change interventions are here to stay and present great potential.
Read more on the NoHoW website
NoHoW at ECO2019
NoHoW’s position statement team (from left):
Marta Marques, James Stubbs, Berit Heitmann, Inês Santos and Cristiana Duarte
NoHoW was active at the 26th European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2019, Glasgow, 28 April – 01 May 2019), hosting the third NoHoW symposium.
The team also hosted a workshop with international leaders and experts in weight loss management to develop a “Position statement on behavioural approaches to longer-term weight management”, together with the EASO Task Force on Obesity Management.
NoHoW Coordinator features in ECO 2019 Newsletter
NoHoW’s coordinator Professor Berit Heitmann has been featured in the Day 1 Newsletter of the 26th Annual European Congress on Obesity (ECO) in Glasgow
Berit and NoHoW were active at ECO, hosting the third NoHoW symposium (28 April, 2019) and a workshop with international leaders and experts in weight loss management to develop a “Position Statement on behavioural approaches to longer-term weight management, together with the EASO Task Force on Weight management (30 April, 2019).
You can read the full feature here. We look forward to sharing the Position Statement early in 2020!
NoHoW at ISBNPA 2019 in Prague ISPNPA 2019
We are pleased to report that the NoHoW consortium was represented by members of the Lisbon team at the 18th ISBNPA Annual Meeting, which took place in beautiful Prague, from June 4th to 7th, 2019.
Using preliminary data from NoHoW trial, Jorge Encantado presented a discriminant analysis of psychological variables among weight losers, suggesting that more active people (> 10,000 steps a day) have better quality motivation to exercise (more autonomous motivation) and also exhibit better planning skills (Action Planning) regarding weight management.
NoHoW Partner Marta Marques delivered a presentation about developing a framework for new ontologies in behavioural sciences and was recognised by ISBNPA. Marta was presented with the first-ever ISBNPA “One to Watch” award.
You can learn more about ISBNPA 2019 here.
Weight Management featured in New Year Podcast
NoHoW coordinator Berit Heitmann joined the Radio Denmark podcast ‘Recept’ to talk about the science of weight management in January 2019.
You can listen to the podcast in Danish here!
Invited Symposium at the 22nd Portuguese Congress on Obesity
On 25 Nov 2018, NoHoW was featured at an Invited Symposium ‘ICT-based Weight Loss Maintenance: The NoHoW European Project’ at the 22nd Congresso Português de Obesidade (SPEO) in Lisbon, Portugal. Chaired by Dr. António Palmeira, the symposium included talks from NoHoW researchers:
- ‘Emotion Regulation and Stress Management Intervention Component of NoHoW’, Matos (UDC),
- ‘Thematic Basis of the NoHoW Trial’, I. Santos (FMH),
- ‘Toolkit Demo and fitbit/scales Integration, J. Encantado (FMH),
- ‘Self-Regulation and Motivation Intervention Component of NoHoW’, A. Palmeira (FMH), and
- ‘Methods and Procedures of the NoHoW Trial’, C. Luís.
Recent NoHoW publication features in AU News
The results of a recent NoHoW publication on weight loss maintenance have been featured in the Aarhus University Department of Management News (Pedersen, S. et al. (2018). The complexity of self-regulating food intake in weight loss maintenance. A qualitative study among short- and long-term weight loss maintainers.
You can read a summary of the publication here.
A full list of our publications can be found here.
NoHoW at EHPS 2018
NoHoW’s Marta Marques presented the NoHoW Toolkit at the 32nd Annual Conference of the European Health Psychology Society (21 – 25 August 2018, Galway Ireland).
The conference theme was Health Psychology Across the Lifespan: Uniting Research, Practice and Policy. Marta’s talk ‘Designing and testing theory-based mHealth tools for weight loss maintenance: The NoHoW Toolkit‘ was included in the ‘Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Digital Intervention Development’ session, chaired by Brian Oldenburg.
ISBNPA 2018 General Meeting
It was a great experience for a young PhD student to join the ISBNPA 17th Annual Meeting. The meeting was held in Hong Kong (03 – 06 June) and included many high quality and compelling presentations. Networking opportunities at the meeting were substantial and inspiring, allowing us to meet top researchers in a wide range of behavioural science fields. The city of Hong Kong itself provided the ideal backdrop for this event.
Read more on the meeting and winner of the poster award on the NoHoW website
Learn more about NoHoW
Interested in learning more about the NoHoW project?