Motivational Interviewing to Enhance Weight Loss and Eating Self-Efficacy in Overweight and Obese Adults

Greater than six in ten adults in the United States are overweight or obese which can lead to cardiovascular disease, Type II Diabetes, joint injury and some forms of cancer, costing billions of healthcare dollars each year. Weight loss is difficult, as is maintaining weight loss. The purpose of this project is to investigate if use of the evidenced based (EB) intervention, motivational interviewing (MI), will enhance weight loss and eating self-efficacy (ESE) in overweight and obese adults seeking weight loss at a weight loss clinic over the course of eight weeks. Participants who received MI in addition to current weight loss strategies lost significantly more weight (-2.74 kg, p \u3c .05) between the four and eight week visits as compared patients who did not receive MI (-1.3222 kg). The overall weight change over the course of this eight week study in patients who received MI was -6.7733 kg as compared to patients who did not receive MI which was -4.5717 kg. ESE was significantly improved from the initial visit of 4.8733 (p \u3c .05) to the four week visit of 4.6733 (p \u3c .05) and 4.3267 (p \u3c .05) at eight weeks in participants who received monthly MI sessions. Keywords: Weight Loss, Motivational Interviewing, Obesity, Self-efficac