DefinePK

Abstract

Objective: To study impact of dietary intervention and counseling on weight and anthropometric indices of obesefemales.Study Design: Prospective randomized controlled trial.Place and Duration of Study: This study was conducted at Pakistan Navy Ship (PNS) Shifa, from Feb 2014 to Sep2014.Patients and Methods: Study subjects were 320 obese females from Karachi, Pakistan, aged 20 to 40 years. Beforerandomization all baseline anthropometric measurements were recorded. After that females were randomlyplaced into intervention and control groups. Anthropometry and 24-hour dietary recall were used for nutritionalassessment. Intervention strategy was individualized diet plan by registered dietitian according to base line bodyweight and anthropometric indices of study subject. Primary outcome was the change in body weight and bodymass index.Results: The final analysis was run on 280 participants (intervention=127, control=153). Both intervention andcontrol group were comparable with respect to anthropometric variables at start except intervention group hadmore body mass index (BMI) (28.024 ± 3.561). A significant change was observed in body weight (p=0.001), BMI(p=0.001), waist circumference (p=0.001), hip circumference (p=0.01), waist hip ratio (p=0.04) in an interventiongroup while control group only showed significant reduction in waist circumference (p=0.041). Interventiongroup showed significant improvement in dietary behavior which was depicted by increased intake of fruit andfiber consumption (p=0.001), reduction in consumption of simple carbohydrates (p=0.001), animal protein(p=0.001) and fatty food (p=0.001). Control group showed decrease in waist circumference in response toreduction in dietary fat intake and increase intake of fruits (p=0.001) and vegetables (p=0.042).Conclusion: The results of our study have positively demonstrated that nutritional intervention among obesefemales was successful in reducing weight and BMI. Reduction inwaist and hip circumference and change in dietbehavior were also observed as secondary outcome variable.