I haven’t been able to find ANY good statistics on success or failure of weight loss.

One person to whom I quoted the National Weight Loss registry (they suggest anywhere from 10 to 40% success in long term weight loss) said that the registry shouldn’t count since it involved self-reports.

Except for short term inpatient studies, as far as I’m aware, ALL weight loss research is based on self-report.

So setting that aside, do you have links to solid reliable studies involving large groups of people over at least 5 years that show success or failure?

I would add, in case you’re not aware of psychological research (I have conducted research as a psychologist) that any studies showing failure to maintain a certain behavior are not generalizable (though people do often try to generalize them) because even if 1000 people cannot perform a particular behavior, it doesn’t in the least “prove” that another person wouldn’t succeed.

Almost all research on skill development (and you really don’t need research to know this) shows that it takes time and effort to develop skills.

If you took a million, or 10 million or a billion people who had never seen a basketball, and did a study where they attempted to sink 100 foul shots in a row, and nobody succeeded, that would not prove it can’t be done. In fact, Michael Jordan used to do 1000 successful foul shots in a row on a regular basis as a teen — however, he practiced for hours a day over several years.

Similarly with eating — modifying and maintaining a behavior routine is a skill, and it may be less than 10% of the population who has ever had even a minute’s training in modifying behavior — yet research consistently shows it can be done.

So to repeat the question in case it got lost in all the words:

Do you know of any good, reliable research studies regarding long term success or failure in regard to losing weight and maintaining the weight? I’ve never seen anything that proves it can’t be done, but if you have something I’d love to see it.