Wing and her colleagues found that adding just the video lessons in the first study did not produce any significant increase in weight loss. However, in the second study, with the addition of all three strategies, the group had an average weight loss more than double that of first study ” 7.7 pounds compared with 3.1 pounds.

The number of participants who loss 5 percent or more of their body weight was also more than triple in the second study: 40.5 percent compared with 13.2 percent.

"This finding would suggest that education about diet and activity changes alone is important, but not sufficient," Wing said.

Lawrence Cheskin, MD, director of the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, agreed that online programs such as Shape Up RI are worthy of duplication in communities to fight the obesity epidemic."I believe that in-person, individualized feedback and support is generally more likely to be effective than Web sites, but [these programs] can be of value, nonetheless, and certainly less costly," Cheskin said.

SOURCE American Journal of Public Health