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Stunkard et al.’s 1959 study “The Results of Treatment for Ob*sity: A Review of the Literature and Report of a Series” is one of the earliest studies that really sought to determine the success of weight loss interventions. As someone who works full-time pointing out that weight loss interventions almost never succeed at creating significant, long-term weight loss and often do harm, every time I read this study it is a combination of validating and incredibly frustrating.

Content note: this post will include discussion of calories and weight loss so please make sure to take care of yourself.

Let’s dig in:

They begin by saying: “The current widespread concern with weight reduction rests on at least two assumptions: first, that weight-reduction programs are effective, second, that they are harmless.”

They continue “Recent studies indicate that such programs may be far from harmless. This report documents their ineffectiveness.”

Again, it’s validating to see that they were explaining this in 1952, but incredibly frustrating that the only thing that has changed since then is that the weight loss industry profits have grown exponentially, and the interventions have become more dangerous and more expensive.

The study looks at weight loss success/failure in two ways. First, a review of the weight loss literature for the previous 30 years, and second, an examination of the outcomes of the treatment of 100 consecutive higher-weight patients at New York Hospital’s Nutrition Clinic.

Literature Review

Here they use a phrase that I say or write some version of pretty much daily. “Hundreds of papers on treatment for ob*sity* have been published in the past 30 years. Most, however, do not give figures on the outcome of treatment, and of those that do, most report them in such a way as to obscure the outcome of treatment in individual patients.” They point out the following issues:

* Reporting the number of patients and total pounds lost without specifying how much/the average that each patient lost

* Short-duration studies

* Reporting as a percentage rather than a number of pounds

* The exclusion of those who dropped out or were “uncooperative” who the authors explain likely represent intervention failure and comprise an “impressive part” of the study samples

They point out that “if papers with these shortcomings are omitted, the vast literature on treatment for ob*sity shrinks to just eight reports.”

I’ll point out that these are still incredibly common occurrences in weight loss research. That, to me, indicates that those doing the research aren’t interested in creating good research, but are interested in creating research to prop up the failed weight-loss paradigm. Anyway, back to Stunkard et al.

The eight studies had subject groups ranging from 48-314.  

Of the eight studies, interventions ranged from “self-selected diet,” to starvation diets (from 600 to 1,000 calories per day), to amphetamines.

Four of the studies had more people lose less than 10 pounds than those who lost 10 or more pounds. Only one had a majority lose more than 20 pounds.  

Overall, only 25% of people were able to lose 20lbs and only 5% where able to lose 40lb short-term (and remember that research since 1959 has repeatedly shown that about 95% of this small group will regain all of the weight within five years.)

Study of 100 pa