Weight loss a phone call away, study finds

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Phone and email counselling help people improve their diet and lose weight, according to a Dutch study published on Friday that points to a potentially simple but effective tool in the fight against obesity.

The study of 1,400 Dutch overweight workers suggests this kind of lifestyle advice is especially good for people unwilling to seek face-to-face counselling to deal with weight problems.

"We actually found significant weight loss with phone counselling which hasn't been seen in other research," said Marieke Van Wier, a researcher at VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam, who worked on the study.

"If you get some people to lose a modest amount of weight it can make big impact on public health."

Obesity, which raises the risk of diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart problems, is increasingly a problem as more people adopt a sedentary lifestyle.

The World Health Organisation classifies about 400 million people around the world as obese.

Van Wier and colleagues randomly assigned the volunteers -- all of whom were classified as overweight -- into either a control group which had no counselling, one that received phone counselling and another given email counselling.

The advice included encouragement to keep fit, such as taking a walk at lunch, and stressed eating a healthy diet. It did not entail any particular weight-loss target, Van Wier said in a telephone interview.

After six months people on phone counselling lost 1.5 kg more than those in the control group while the volunteers using email lost 0.6 kilograms more, Van Wier said.