Now new research is giving fresh hope to those with serious mental illness who also need to lose weight, suggesting that they too can lose weight and change their behaviour with the right help and support.
The study, carried out by a team at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in Baltimore, with the findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine, aimed to prove that lifestyle programs could work just as effectively among people with mental health problems as they do in the general population.
Almost 300 overweight or obese patients with serious mental illness were recruited into a program known as ACHIEVE (Randomised Trial of Achieving Healthy Lifestyles in Psychiatric Rehabilitation) with around half placed in an intervention group and the rest in a control group.
The participants were already attending outpatient psychiatric rehabilitation day facilities and, as part of ACHIEVE, they were given group and individual weight management sessions, regular exercise classes and a weekly weigh-in for the first six months. The exercise schedule of three classes per week continued for the next 12 months while the weight management sessions and weigh-ins gradually decreased.
After 18 months, the intervention group had lost 7lbs more than the control group with almost 38% of the intervention group having lost 5% or more of their start weight, compared with 23% of the control group. Patients continued to lose weight as the program progressed with the researchers concluding that behavioural change, while initially slow, became more fixed and beneficial as time went on.
The study found that those with mental health illnesses are as capable of those in the wider population of making substantial lifestyle changes, particularly when weight-loss programs are specifically tailored to their needs.