ReviewEuropean journal of clinical nutrition2005
Role of social support in lifestyle-focused weight management interventions.
Review in European journal of clinical nutrition, 2005. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 99 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
99 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Identifying Social Media-Based Interactions That Help Adults to Adhere to Weight Loss Goals: A Systematic Review.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2026Pooled it
- Weight Management in Young Adults: Systematic Review of Electronic Health Intervention Components and Outcomes.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Pooled it
- Child Obesity Prevention From Pregnancy: Long-Term Follow-Up of the Starting Early Program Trial.Pediatrics · 2025Trial
- Wellness Achieved Through Changing Habits: A Randomized Controlled Trial of an Acceptance-Based Intervention for Adolescent Girls With Overweight or Obesity.Childhood obesity (Print) · 2023Trial
- Validation of the most cost-effective nudge to promote workers' regular self-weighing: a cluster randomized controlled trial.Scientific reports · 2022Trial
- Predictors of employment in people with moderate to severe mental illness participating in a randomized controlled trial of Individual Placement and Support (IPS).The International journal of social psychiatry · 2021Trial
- Trial
- Determining how best to support overweight adults to adhere to lifestyle change: protocol for the SWIFT study.BMC public health · 2015Trial
- Using new technologies to promote weight management: a randomised controlled trial study protocol.BMC public health · 2015Trial
- The effect of social support features and gamification on a Web-based intervention for rheumatoid arthritis patients: randomized controlled trial.Journal of medical Internet research · 2015Trial
- When Intervention Meets Organisation, a Qualitative Study of Motivation and Barriers to Physical Exercise at the Workplace.TheScientificWorldJournal · 2015Trial
- Process evaluation of the Teamplay parenting intervention pilot: implications for recruitment, retention and course refinement.BMC public health · 2013Trial
- Social support for healthy behaviors: scale psychometrics and prediction of weight loss among women in a behavioral program.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2012Trial
- Tweets, Apps, and Pods: Results of the 6-month Mobile Pounds Off Digitally (Mobile POD) randomized weight-loss intervention among adults.Journal of medical Internet research · 2011Trial
- Differential response of African American and Caucasian women to extended-care programs for obesity management.Ethnicity & disease · 2011Trial
- Behavioral intervention, exercise, and nutrition education to improve health and fitness (BENEfit) in adolescents with mobility impairment due to spinal cord dysfunction.The journal of spinal cord medicine · 2007Trial
- Plasma proteomic signatures of social support and their association with cardiovascular disease and mortality: exploratory analyses in a national cohort study.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Preventive Strategies to Reduce Sarcopenia Risk During GLP-1-Based Anti-Obesity Therapy.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Review of the Use of Digital Therapeutics for Obesity Treatment: Toward a Psychological Phenotyping.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Review
- Factors Associated with the Acceptance of Weight Loss Drugs Among Overweight and Obese Adults in Mainland China: A Cross-Sectional Study.Patient preference and adherence · 2026Article
39 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Social support is important to achieve beneficial changes in risk factors for disease, such as overweight and obesity. This paper presents the theoretical and practical framework for social support, and the mechanisms by which social support affects body weight. The theoretical and practical framework is supported with a literature review addressing studies involving a social support intervention for weight loss and weight loss maintenance. A major aspect in social support research and practice is the distinction between structural and functional support. Structural support refers to the availability of potential support-givers, while functional support refers to the perception of support. Interventions often affect structural support, for example, through peer groups, yet functional support shows a stronger correlation with health. Although positive correlations between social support and health have been shown, social support may also counteract health behaviour change. Most interventions discussed in this review showed positive health outcomes. Surprisingly, social support was clearly defined on a practical level in hardly any studies, and social support was assessed as an outcome variable in even fewer studies. Future social support intervention research would benefit from clear definitions of social support, a clear description of the intended mechanism of action and the actual intervention, and the inclusion of perceived social support as a study outcome.
Indexed as
Identifiers
16052189What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.