The application of life style enhancement awareness program on obese individuals

Abstract EN

Objective: To determine the effect of application of life style enhancement awareness program on obese individuals.

Methods: This is a prospective longitudinal study, which was implemented in private nutritional clinic in Babylon during March and September of 2007.

The study included 94 individuals( men & women ) who were willing to participate.

The criteria for the sample selection included being obese, having high serum lipid and patients willingness to reduce their weight.

The patients were followed up for a 26 weeks period consisting of continuous health education program, maintenance on low caloric diet and exercise to help them reduce their body weight.

This period included a lifestyle enhancement awareness program (LEAP) consisted of intensive health education sessions that included 4 health education sessions on weight loss, 4 sessions on weight loss maintenance with frequent & regular visits to the clinic to make sure that they were compliant with the given instructions.

Results: The study showed that patients who completed the designed program had a reduction in body weight, body mass index, and lipid level and an increase in physical activity and dietary readiness to control over-eating.

Although in both genders there was a significant drop in all the parameters, only body mass index (p = 0.001) and cholesterol (p = 0.006) showed a statistically significant difference between men and women.

In men, cholesterol level at the initial stage of the study was strongly related to the body weight (r = 0.73 p=0.005) and body mass index (r = 0.9, p < 0.00).

Despite that the cholesterol level reduced more in women than men ; women decreased less in weight (r = 0.5, p < 0.005) and body mass index (r = 0.6, p < 0.005) than men.

Conclusion : there is a strong needed for increased public awareness about early identification and prevention of obesity.

The benefit from a life enhancement program that increases their awareness on the danger of obesity and helps them in reducing body weight and serum lipid level.