Abstract

META-ANALYSIS: EFFICACY OF PEDOMETER-BASED WALKING INTERVENTIONS AND WEIGHT LOSS

Abdullah Mohammed Khairy*, Khalid Seraj Almalki, Afnan Ateeg Batwie, Atef Homayed Aljahdaly, Raheef Abdulaziz Bagaresh, Majed Mohamad Alomari, Sultan Mahdi Assaf Alqarni, Badryh Saad Albalwi, Rawan Saeed Alasmari, Abdullah Ahmed Almontashiri, Fuad Musllam ALHarbi

Abstract

Background & Purpose: Moderate bodily activity from taking walks is considered useful for prevention and management of diverse chronic illnesses including: obesity, excessive blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, musculoskeletal disorders (MSD), and cardiovascular disease, and is related to a reduction in premature mortality and development in quality of lifestyles. Pedometer is an effective, user-friendly tool to screen PA with the goal of enhancing health. The Aim of this work is to provide cumulative data about the effect of pedometer-based walking interventions on weight loss in people with sedentary life styles. Methods: A systematic search was performed of PubMed, Cochrane library Ovid, Scopus & Google scholar to identify Family medicine RCTs, clinical trials, and comparative studies, which studied the outcome of Intervention group versus Control group of people with sedentary life styles. A meta-analysis was done using fixed and random-effect methods. The main outcome was weight change. Secondary outcomes were correlation between weight change and step count and baseline body mass index (BMI). Results: A total of 5 studies were identified involving 298 patients, with 169 patients in Intervention group, and 129 patients in Control group. Regarding main outcome measure, the fixed-effects model of the meta-analysis study showed highly significant decrease in mean weight in Intervention group compared to Control group (p < 0.01). Regarding secondary outcome measures, the correlation analysis showed significant negative correlation between weight change and step count / day (p < 0.05). The correlation analysis also showed non-significant correlation between weight change and baseline BMI (p > 0.05). Conclusion: To conclude, pedometer-based walking program without a dietary intervention component do result in a modest amount of weight loss. Pedometer-based walking programs also do increase step counts and thus can be expected to confer health benefits that are associated with both a modest decrease in weight and an increase in physical activity.

Keywords: Pedometer-based walking, Weight loss.