How to Compare the Effectiveness of Weight Watchers and Other Diet Plans

Effective ways to lose weight are of perennial interest. Though obesity is generally acknowledged to have reached epidemic proportions, finding reliable information on this important health issue can be difficult. Numerous popular weight-loss plans exist, often with radically different approaches. Simply scanning the local bookstore or library shelves for diet books or searching online can be an exercise in frustration. How do you determine which diet offers not only the best method, but also the healthiest approach?

Instructions

1

Look for authoritative information. Do not rely on recommendations from friends, neighbors, ads, the current fad diet or the latest best-seller.

2

Use the Internet, either at home or in a public library, to search the medical literature (see Resources, below).

3




Try using the United States National Library of Medicines online database PubMed. This free database houses millions of health-related articles, reports and studies. Go through the tutorial on how to search PubMed, linked on the home page. Also read the FAQ.

4




Start with a simple search such as the name of the diet in which you are interested, such as Weight Watchers or Atkins diet. To make the search results easier to review, select Abstractsfrom the Limits tab on the Web page.

5

Look for reports not only on actual weight loss but also on how the diets affected various risk factors such as lipids (total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, triglycerides), glucose, insulin, C-reactive protein and blood pressure.