Team members influence retention in a First Peoples’ community-based weight-loss program

The aim of this study was to evaluate program retention factors in a repeated team-based weight-loss and healthy lifestyle program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Data comprised 3107 participants in 10 Aboriginal Knockout Health Challenge contests. Multiple variable and bivariate analyses compared age, gender, self-reported behaviors (physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption) and objectively measured weight between completers and non-completers. First-time participants (n = 3107) who completed were more likely to be female, be older, weigh less and have more completing members in their team; only the number of team members completing was significant among participants (n = 1245) who took part in a second contest participation. Multivariate results were similar, with a participant’s odds of completing on their first and second participation occasion increasing by 1.16 and 1.18, respectively, with every teammate completed. Given that the strongest effect centered on a social factor, this highlights the importance of having community-driven design and the benefits of a group-based approach to engage and maintain First Peoples’ engagement in preventive health programs. Further, by identifying a change in factors associated with retention in successive weight-loss attempts, this study improves understanding of retention in weight-loss programs more generally.