Self-management of nutrition

Eleven overweight subjects received a behavioral treatment program for weight loss and a nutritional self-management program during a 10-week treatment period. The nutritional self-management program was evaluated using a multiple-baseline across-groups design. The results indicated that caloric restriction without the nutritional self-management program did not result in the consumption of a well-balanced diet. Introduction of the nutritional self-management program led to improvement of nutritional consumption across six food groups. Self-control of caloric intake within certain food groups, i.e., fruit and vegetable, was better than for others. These findings are discussed in terms of the methodological difficulties involved in managing nutrition and the significance of nutritional self-management for health problems other than obesity.