Food Diary for Body Fat Loss

Abstract

<p>With obesity reaching epidemic proportions, it is imperative to develop strategies to help people decrease body fat. In our study we are examining the effects of accountability in keeping a food diary as a strategy for losing body fat. We are testing three levels of accountability including 1) keeping a private food diary, 2) keeping a food diary that is analyzed by the research team, and 3) keeping a food diary that is analyzed by the research team with nutritional quality data returned to the subject. We hypothesize that the increased accountability with each of these levels will correlate with an increase in body fat loss. Body fat is measured using air displacement plethysmography (BodPod®) at the beginning of the study and every third week for the nine week duration of the experiment. Our control group (same measurements, but no food diary kept) showed no change in body fat (P>0.05), but the experimental groups are currently too small for statistical analysis of the correlation between the level of accountability and body fat loss. The experimental groups together show a small decrease in body fat (1-2 % loss). We conclude that habitually keeping a food diary with any accountability for nutritional intake will be a simple, useable strategy for body fat loss in the general population. Supported by Wright State University's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (CKe) and WSU's Women in Science Giving Circle Grant (LKH).</p><p>This presentation occurred at the Wright State University Campus-Wide Celebration of Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities on April 8, 2011</p>