New Weight Loss Model Targets Individual Response to Food Cues

Individuals who are high on food cue responsiveness typically have uncontrolled eating and ruminate (think) about food a lot of the time

WeightControl.com Interview with:

Dr. Kerri N. Boutelle, Ph.D
Department of Pediatrics
Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science,
Department of Psychiatry
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California

WeightControl.com:  What is the background for this study?  What are the main findings?

Response: Behavioral weight loss, which includes nutrition and physical activity education and behavior therapy techniques (also called a lifestyle intervention), is not effective for all adults with overweight and obesity and of those who lose weight, the majority regain the weight back.  This suggests that there are unaddressed underlying mechanisms that impact the effectiveness of these interventions. 

We developed a novel weight loss model based on appetitive traits, called regulation of cues (roc), that targets improving responsiveness to hunger and satiety cues and decreasing responsiveness to food cues.  This is different than behavioral weight loss as it targets these internal control mechanisms while behavioral weight loss targets external control mechanisms.