Preliminary Evidence of Contextual Factors’ Influence on Weight Loss Treatment Outcomes: Implications for Future Research

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Behavioral health interventions, including behavioral obesity treatment, typically target psychosocial qualities of the individual (e.g., knowledge, self-efficacy) that are largely treated as persistent, over momentary contextual factors (e.g., affect, environmental conditions). The variance in treatment outcomes that can be attributable to these two sources is rarely quantified but may help inform future research and treatment development efforts. SUBJECTS/METHODS: The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for weekly weight loss was calculated in three studies involving 10–12 weeks of behavioral obesity treatment delivered to adults via in-person group sessions, mobile application, or website. The ICC explains the proportion of variance between versus within individuals, and was used to infer the contribution of individual versus contextual factors to weekly weight loss. The analytic approach involved unconditional linear mixed effect models with a random effect for subject. RESULTS: The ICCs were very low, ranging from 0.01 to 0.06, suggesting that momentary contextual factors may influence obesity treatment outcomes to a substantial degree. CONCLUSIONS: This study yielded preliminary evidence that the influence of contextual factors in behavioral obesity treatment may be underappreciated. Future research is needed to simultaneously identify and quantify sources of within- and between-subjects variance to optimize treatment approaches.