Who will lose weight? A reexamination of predictors of weight loss in women

Table 1 Correlation Between Pretreatment Variables and Weight Change at 4 Months

	Weight Change			Weight Change¹
	n	ρ	p	ρ	p	Mean	SD	Min	Max
Number of diets in past year	130	0.26	0.002	0.26	0.003	1.2	1.7	0	8
Months at current weight	127	-0.13	0.139	-0.13	0.157	24.1	24.1	0	120
"Acceptable" weight loss (% initial)	134	0.33	<0.001	0.26	0.002	92.7	4.0	77.1	100.6
"Happy" weight loss (% initial)	135	0.27	0.001	0.21	0.015	89.0	4.9	74.9	99.1
Impact of weight on quality of life	138	0.02	0.837	-0.05	0.594	79.5	14.1	37.9	100.0
Self-motivation	135	-0.19	0.030	-0.18	0.036	141.3	17.9	100.0	183.0
Body size dissatisfaction	134	0.09	0.280	0.18	0.038	2.29	0.88	0	5
Self-esteem	131	0.00	0.970	-0.01	0.930	32.4	3.77	24	40
Exercise perceived barriers	138	0.08	0.364	0.08	0.359	29.8	6.29	12	43
Exercise self-efficacy	138	-0.03	0.721	-0.03	0.750	38.3	4.78	25	49

Higher scores indicate higher value for characteristic tested (e.g. higher quality of life, higher self-motivation, higher body size dissatisfaction, more perceived barriers, etc.); Since weight change was coded as baseline weight subtracted to 4-month weight, weight loss is represented by a negative value (thus, a negative correlation coefficient indicates a positive correlation with weight loss). ¹Four-month weight adjusted for baseline weight.

ISSN: 1479-5868