Earlier this year, the Joint Task Force of the American Society for Nutrition proposed that it would help reduce weight gain to focus not on achieving weight loss, but on promoting small changes in diet and physical activity to prevent further weight gain (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2009;89:477-484). Suggested changes include increasing activity by 2000 steps per day (i.e., walking an extra mile) or saving 150 calories per day by substituting diet for regular soda. In their rebuttal to this suggestion, Drs. Rigby and Muller argued persuasively, “It would be a bold claim for even seasoned nutritionists to suggest that they could monitor their personal energy equilibrium [energy consumed vs. energy expended] with such accuracy.” (Obesity Facts, 2;63-66).
Rigby and Muller argue that the obesity epidemic demands that we work toward reducing obesity now, not just preventing a worsening of the problem. They assert that “Settling for small steps, rather than significant strategies to counteract obesity, can only guarantee that the problem will get bigger and worse.”
These researchers make an excellent point. Now is not the time for settling for what is, without working to change what we can. Even more importantly, very little evidence supports the viability of the small steps approach. In all likelihood, the body’s remarkable adaptability will render such steps completely meaningless. Moreover, this writer cannot imagine that weight controllers themselves would ever embrace this goal. Having worked with thousands of overweight people, it seems to strain credibility to suggest that these individuals would work, make consistent changes of the sort suggested, without the promise of notable improvements in their weight status. If that is all that science has to sell, overweight people simply won’t buy it.