Journal Article

A Family and Community Focused Lifestyle Program Prevents Weight Regain in Pacific Islanders: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

Palakiko, Donna-Marie, Rose, Charles, Efird, Jimmy T., Kaholokula, Joseph Keawe'aimoku, West, Margaret, Yoshimura, Sheryl R., Mau, Marjorie K., Gomes, Henry, Leake, Anne, Kekauoha, B. Puni

2012

Overview

Preventing weight regain after the loss of excess weight is challenging for people, especially for ethnic minorities in the United States. A 6-month weight loss maintenance intervention designed for Pacific Islanders, called the PILI Lifestyle Program (PLP), was compared with a 6-month standard behavioral weight loss maintenance program (SBP) in a pilot randomized controlled trial using a community-based participatory research approach. Adult Pacific Islanders (N = 144) were randomly assigned to either PLP (n = 72) or SBP (n = 72) after completing a 3-month weight loss program. Successful weight maintenance was defined as participants' postintervention weight change remaining ≤3% of their preintervention mean weight. Both PLP and SBP participants achieved significant weight loss maintenance (p ≤ .05). Among participants who completed at least half of the prescribed sessions, PLP participants were 5.1-fold (95% confidence interval = 1.06, 24; p = .02) more likely to have maintained their initial weight loss than SBP participants. The pilot PLP shows promise as a lifestyle intervention to address the obesity disparities of Pacific Islanders and thus warrants further investigation.

• Publisher: SAGE Publications,SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subject: Adult / Body Weight / Clinical trials / Community based action research / Community involvement / Community research / Community-Based Participatory Research - organization & administration / Comparative Analysis / Confidence intervals / Diet / Education / Ethnic groups / Exercise / Family / Family Programs / Female / Hawaii / Health Behavior / Health education / Health Education - organization & administration / Health Promotion / Humans / Intervention / Life Style / Lifestyle / Lifestyles / Maintenance / Male / Middle Aged / Minority Groups / Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander / Native peoples / Obesity / Overweight - therapy / Pacific Islander people / Pacific Islanders / Participatory Research / Pilot Projects / Prescribed / Prevention programs / Preventive programmes / Program Descriptions / Randomized Controlled Trials / Research Methodology / Secondary Prevention / Warrants / Weight control / Weight loss / Weight Reduction Programs - organization & administration