In order to improve eating habits and to lose weight effectively, we introduced behavior modification techniques into the health education program in a public health center. The subjects were one male and fourteen female obese persons, who recruited from a local community by a letter and a municipal news bulletin. The mean age for the subject population was 48.1 yr (range: 33-59 yr) and the subjects avaraged 31.2% overweight (range: 20-48%) as calculated by the Minowa norms. The program consisted of 13 sessions in 25 weeks and the components included medical examination, nutritional education, physical activity, and behavior modification such as self monitoring, stimulous control, social reinforcement and controlling the eating behavior. The subjects were requested to self-monitor the following activities during the whole periods: daily weight, eating records, and setted target behaviors. The results were as follows. 1) Two were dropped out and mean weight loss of 13 subjects was 6.0 kg, (range:+0.5〜-10.5g). Examination of weight loss curves showed that the rate of weight reduction slowed significantly over time, and weight losses early in program (4 weeks) were highly related to the outcome at the end of treatment. 2) The performance rate of eating diary and the attendance rate were both almost 80% and a relationship was found between these rates and successful weight reduction. 3) Improvement of eating habits on questionnaires and several desirable changes on medical examination; such as reduced plasma triglicelide, increased HDL cholesterol, decreased diastoric blood pressure were recognized significantly. 4) The low drop-out rate, few negative side effect and marked inter-individual variability, which are basic features of behavior weight control, were observed.
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