Research paper
Gorin AA, Phelan S, Wing RR, Hill JO. Promoting long-term weight control: does dieting consistency matter? International Journal of Obesity. 2004 Feb;28(2):278-81. doi:10.1038/sj.ijo.0802550
Why we cite it
Prospective evidence that dietary consistency across the week and the year predicts long-term weight maintenance — the authors’ own word: ”Dieting consistency appears to be a behavioral strategy that predicts subsequent long-term weight loss maintenance.”
The odds ratio has a specific comparator. OR = 1.58 (95% CI 1.2–2.2) compares people who reported the same diet regimen all week with people who reported dieting more strictly on weekdays, not with everyone else and not with an average. Participants picked among three positions on an eight-point scale: stricter on weekends, same throughout, stricter on weekdays.
It is an observational association inside a self-selected registry, with both the exposure and the outcome self-reported: an eight-point self-rating of one’s own dieting consistency, and self-reported weight change over the following year, among 1,429 people who had already succeeded at maintenance. It shows that consistency went with maintenance in this group. It does not quantify a risk anyone runs, and it cannot show that becoming more consistent would change an outcome.
And the holiday finding carries no number of its own: the abstract reports only that ”a similar relationship emerged” across the year. The 1.58 belongs to the weekday/weekend question alone.
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