To report the outcomes of a Health at Every Size (HAES) intervention in a real-world setting.
Design:
Quasi-experimental design evaluating eating behaviors and psychological factors.
Setting:
The HAES intervention is offered in Health and Social Services Centers in Québec (Canada).
Participants:
For this study, 216 women (body mass index [BMI]: 35.76 [6.80] kg/m2) who participated to the HAES intervention were compared to 110 women (BMI: 34.56 [7.30] kg/m2) from a comparison group.
Intervention:
The HAES intervention is composed of 14 weekly meetings provided by health professionals. It focuses on healthy lifestyle, self-acceptance, and intuitive eating.
Measures:
Eating behaviors (ie, flexible restraint, rigid restraint, disinhibition, susceptibility to hunger, intuitive eating, and obsessive-compulsive eating) and psychological correlates (ie, body esteem, self-esteem, and depression) were assessed using validated questionnaires at baseline, postintervention, and 1-year follow-up.
Analysis:
Group, time, and interaction effects analyzed with mixed models.
Results:
Significant group by time interactions were found for flexible restraint (P = .0400), disinhibition (P < .0001), susceptibility to hunger (P < .0001), intuitive eating (P < .0001), obsessive–compulsive eating (P < .0001), body-esteem (P < .0001), depression (P = .0057), and self-esteem (P < .0001), where women in the HAES group showed greater improvements than women in the comparison group at short and/or long term.
Conclusion:
The evaluation of this HAES intervention in a real-life context showed its effectiveness in improving eating-, weight-, and psychological-related variables among women struggling with weight and body image.
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