Can surfing Internet help you lose weight?

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People tend to lose a little more weight with online help than with traditional weight loss programmes, a Japanese study said — but combining the Internet with in-person contact appears to be the most effective in keeping extra kilos at bay.
With obesity on the rise, there have been many attempts to take advantage of the Internet to help people lose weight, mainly because it’s thought to be easier and less expensive. But while the study, which involved a review of 23 previous studies and was published in the International Journal of Obesity, did find a positive impact from online involvement, the overall effect was small. “Web-based treatment programmes are attractive in primary care because of their ability to reach numerous individuals at low cost,” wrote the researchers, headed by Hirohito Sone of the University of Tsukuba Institute of Clinical Medicine in Ibaraki, Japan.
Overall, patients involved in programs with a Web component lost an average of 3.3 kg more than participants in traditional weight-loss programmes, the group found. The Internet was used in a variety of ways in the weight control programmes, including individualised instruction, communication with lifestyle instructors, counselling and keeping a record of food intake. In addition, the programmes varied in the how much the participants used the Internet. But the researchers found that the most effective approaches were those that combined both Internet and more conventional in-person methods. For instance, when the Internet replaced face-to-face counselling, people actually ended up gaining about 6.6 kg more, on average, than their peers who weren’t getting “help” from the Internet. However, when the programmes combined the Internet and counselling, participants ended up about 4.4 kg lighter than people who did not use the Web.