Dietary Modification as a Weight Management Strategy

Abstract

The ideal dietary prescription for obesity treatment produces clinically significant weight loss, improves the cardiometabolic profile above that which can be achieved by weight loss alone, enriches diet quality, and enhances appetite regulation. This chapter provides an overview of dietary prescriptions that have been investigated within randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for obesity treatment in adults. Research on three types of dietary prescriptions, energy-focused prescriptions, macronutrient-focused prescriptions, and dietary pattern-focused prescriptions, is reviewed. Amount of energy reduction that is incurred appears to be the predominant dietary factor that influences weight loss. While weight loss improves cardiometabolic parameters, differing dietary prescriptions may be able to enhance these improvements, with low-carbohydrate diets enhancing high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol outcomes and high-carbohydrate and low-fat diets improving total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol outcomes. Dietary pattern-focused prescriptions for weight loss show the most promise for increasing dietary quality. For appetite regulation, a diet that is lower in energy density (ED) may assist with reducing hunger and improving satiation.