Education and self-efficacy as predictors of weight loss among older obese females

Obesity is a serious health problem in western society having serious psychological, social, and financial ramifications for the obese as well as deleterious physiological consequences. Accordingly, it is critical to understand the factors which promote voluntary weight loss among the obese. The purpose of this research was to investigate the impact of an educational program and components of Bandura's Self-efficacy Model on weight loss in a population of older females. The research addressed the following questions.; Question #1. To what extent does participation in an educational intervention explain weight loss among older obese female participants? Question #2. What are the relative impacts of education, value of efficacy expectations, efficacy expectations, outcome expectations, value of outcomes, incentives, skills, sociodemographics, and diet history on weight change among older obese females?; The study employed a quasi-experimental design in which a group of older obese females (50 yrs or {dollar}>{dollar}) who had received an educational intervention (n = 60) was compared to a group who had received no intervention (n = 60), the dependent variable being weight loss. Additionally, the relationship between weight loss and the Self-efficacy Model components was assessed.; Self-efficacy instrument development utilized open-ended item generation interviews from a convenience sample of 24 obese females age 50 or older. Items generated were formatted into a 115-item closed-format final survey instrument. Self-efficacy questions were formatted into Likert scales ranging from one to seven. The final instrument was found to possess good test-retest reliability (r =.71), high internal consistency (Incentives, alpha =.87, Efficacy Expectations, alpha =.92, Value of Efficacy Expectations, alpha =.97, Outcome Expectation, alpha =.89, Outcome Values, alpha =.88).; A t-test was used to analyze Research Question #1. At the.05 level of significance, subjects who received the educational intervention had a mean weight loss of 7.6 lb. Those who did not participate in the educational intervention had a mean weight gain of 1.9 lb.; Research Question #2, was analyzed using stepwise multiple regression. Education explained 10% of the variance in weight, Efficacy Expectations explained 7% of the variance in weight, Age explained 3% of the variance in weight. Additionally, at the.05 level of significance each of these variables were found to be independently significant in predicting weight loss. No other independent variables were significantly related to weight loss.; Implications for theory and practice were discussed in view of the limitations of the study. Directions for further investigations were suggested.