Three-year follow-up data in overweight treatment.

Reassessed 3 years after the termination of a weight reduction program the body weight of former participants to control long-term efficiency of behavior-oriented weight reduction programs. Of 31 former participants, 21 could be rechecked. Most of the Ss stabilized their body weight or continued to reduce weight. Only 4Ss regained weight over the 3-year period. On an average, the group of former Ss lost 4.4 kilograms over the follow-up period. The whole reduction (therapy time and follow-up) resulted in 11.3 kilograms. Three results are encouraging, but difficult to discuss because no member of the former control group could be reassessed after 3 years and 10 Ss of the former therapy-groups could not be motivated to renewed collaboration. However, these results support the behavior-oriented approach to weight reduction and give evidence for the stabilizing function of such a therapy.