Impact of community lifestyle intervention on anthropometric parameters and body composition among overweight and obese women: findings from the MyBFF@home study

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of overweight and obesity among Malaysian women remained high over the past three decades. Collaboration with existing community at-risk may be feasible for wide-scale prevention of overweight and obesity in the country. The aims of this study were to examine the impact of community-based lifestyle intervention among overweight and obese women on their anthropometric and body composition changes as compared to the usual care group.

METHODS: This was a quasi-experimental study conducted in low-cost flats in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A total of 255 overweight and obesity individuals aged between 18 to 59 years old were assigned to either the lifestyle intervention group (n = 169) or the usual care group (n = 146) over a period of 6 months. Individuals in the intervention group received 6 individual lifestyle counselling comprised of physical activity, diet counselling and self-monitoring components aimed to achieve at least 5% weight loss while individuals in the usual care group obtained six sessions of health care seminars from health care providers. These individuals were then followed-up for another 6 months without any intervention as part of maintenance period.

RESULTS: An intention-to-treat analysis of between-groups at 6-month of intervention (β, 95% CI) revealed greater changes in weight among intervention individuals' (- 1.09 kg vs. -0.99; p  0.05). Individuals in the intervention group showed a significant increase for skeletal muscle mass (0.13 kg) than those individuals in the control group (- 0.37 kg), p = 0.033, throughout the study period.

CONCLUSION: This study provides evidence that an overweight and obesity prevention program can be implemented in a community setting, with some reduction of several anthropometric and body composition parameters.