Authors' objectives: Obesity in adults increases the risk of many serious illnesses, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, osteoarthritis, breast and bowel cancer. People who are very heavy are at a higher risk of these diseases than people who are just a little bit overweight. Current weight loss services provided by the NHS, local authorities and commercial organisations rarely take the severity of people s weight into account. So people who may need more support, or different kinds of support, to lose weight may not be offered more help, or that help for longer. There are some services already provided by the NHS to help people who are very heavy lose weight, but the provision of these services is patchy round the UK. The services provided are very variable, and it is not clear exactly how much of what kinds of help should be provided. We would like to review all the research evidence to see if weight loss programmes should be designed differently for people who are much heavier (and more likely to have medical problems related to their weight). We will particularly examine which weight loss programmes help people lose weight in the long term and keep that weight off. We will also look to see how weight loss programmes compare with weight loss surgery. We will look to see if these weight loss programmes decrease people s risks from serious diseases, such as diabetes or heart disease. We will look at the evidence about where and how these services should be delivered to make them more attractive to people. We are interested in finding out how losing and then maintaining a healthier weight can be made more relevant for people's lives. We will also look to see if the best weight loss programmes provide good value for the NHS. We have many years of experience undertaking reviews on the management of obesity. No organisation that we know of is looking at the evidence in the way that we plan. The main costs of this project are for reviewers to find and bring together all the relevant evidence. Other costs are to cover the supervision of these reviewers and provide administrative support. We have requested funds to cover advisory meetings and teleconferences with lay representatives with experience of obesity, and policy makers from the NHS. Costs also include publication of five open access articles, which anyone will be able to read. We will present our findings at conferences for policy makers, providers of weight management services, researchers and the public.

Project Status: Completed

URL for project: http://www.nets.nihr.ac.uk/projects/hta/150904

Year Published: 2018

URL for published report: https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/programmes/hta/150904#/

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Not Assigned

Country: England, United Kingdom

Organisation Name: NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme

Contact Address: NIHR Journals Library, National Institute for Health and Care Research, Evaluation, Trials and Studies Coordinating Centre, Alpha House, University of Southampton Science Park, Southampton SO16 7NS, UK

Contact Name: journals.library@nihr.ac.uk

Contact Email: journals.library@nihr.ac.uk

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