Investing Wisely in Your Health & Weight

As you step into 2004 armed with all your New Year determination to eat well, lose weight and be healthy the difficult decision is ‘how’ to achieve this!

Australians are bombarded with weight loss options and are investing large sums of money in their fight against the current obesity ‘epidemic’. A recent study from Deakin University (K. Ball et al.) investigated the dollars spent by young Australian women (aged 18-32 years) on various weight loss strategies - many of which do not seem to offer long-term success. While about the same percentage of women used the services of both health professionals and commercial weight loss options, the relative cost for using the commercial weight loss choice was more than twice that of using a health professional.

Aloysa Hourigan, senior nutritionist, for Nutrition Australia says “while there is currently no single weight loss strategy that stands out as ‘the answer’ for weight loss success it would be good advice to make sure you are investing your dollars wisely. If you decide to use a commercial weight management organisation make your selection from those that are members of the Weight Management Code of Practice (www.weightcouncil.org). Nutrition Australia suggests the following guidelines for choosing the best investment in your weight and health.

Make sure the eating plan you choose:

• offers a wide variety of food
• does not exclude any of the core food groups
• offers a meal pattern that you can continue long term
• focuses on achieving consistent gradual change (1-2 kg per month is preferable) rather than an ‘overnight’ quick fix
• includes planning for regular physical activity that you think you can continue
• focuses on changing eating behaviours e.g. eating slowly and responding to stress and emotions in other ways than with food
• Let yourself set small achievable goals that fit with your lifestyle and your household.”

Nutrition Australia offers help with this planning in their publication “Weight for a Change” (order form and further information about popular diets are available on www.nutritionaustralia.org).

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For Further Information and Story Opportunities Contact:

Aloysa Hourigan
Senior Nutritionist
Mobile: 0417 078 956
Nutrition Australia (Qld.)
Phone: 07-3257 4393
Fax: 07-3257 4616
Email: qld@NutritionAustralia.org

Lucinda Dobson
Executive Officer
Nutrition Australia (Vic.)
Phone/Fax: 03 - 9528 2453
Email: vic@nutritionaustralia.org

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Last updated on January 27, 2004 .