ABSTRACT
Zoe Rutherforda, Brendan Goughb, Sarah Seymour-Smithc, Christopher R Matthewsd, John Wilcoxe, Dan Parnella and Andy Pringlea
aCentre for Active Lifestyles, Carnegie Faculty, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK; bCentre for Men’s Health, Faculty of Health, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK; cSchool of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK; dSchool of Sport and Service Management, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK; ePublic Health, Nottingham City Council, Nottingham, UK
The purpose of this study was to examine whether an innovative, inclusive and integrated 12-week exercise, behaviour change and nutrition advice-based weight management programme could significantly improve the cardiovascular risk factors of overweight and obese men and women over the age of 35. One hundred and ninety-four men and 98 women (mean age = 52.28 ± 9.74 and 51.19 ± 9.04) attending a community-based intervention delivered by Notts County Football in the Community over one year, took part in the study. Height (m), weight (kg), fitness (meters covered during a 6 min walk) and waist circumference (cm) were measured at weeks 1 and 12 as part of the intervention. Changes in body weight, waist circumference and fitness for men and women were measured by a 2-way repeated measures ANOVA, with significance set to p < 0.05.Weight, waist circumference and fitness significantly improved over time in both men (4.96 kg, 6.29 cm, 70.22 m; p < 0.05) and women (4.26 kg, 5.90 cm, 35.29 m; p < 0.05). The results demonstrated that the FITC lead weight loss intervention was successful in significantly improving cardiovascular risk factors in both men and women. In particular, the weight loss reductions achieved were comparable to those seen in similar, more costly men-only programmes. This is the first study to demonstrate the efficacy of such an intervention in an inclusive, mixed gender programme and more specifically, in women.
