A review of published research on commercial weight loss programs found that only Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig displayed evidence of weight loss in the long term.
Published in the U.S. Annals of Internal Medicine, the review compared the weight loss, adherence and harms of 11 commercial or proprietary programs: Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, NutriSystem, Health Management Resources, Medifast, OPTIFAST, Atkins, The Biggest Loser Club, eDiets, Lose It! and SlimFast.
Advertisement
Of those, just the first two appeared to help people lose weight and keep it off for at least 12 months. Others, including NutriSystem, were promising in the short term but require additional research to determine the long-term results.
Also on HuffPost