Deaf-to-Deaf Weight Loss Program Helps Participants Drop Pounds

Shedding unwanted pounds can be hard for anyone, but may be especially difficult for Deaf sign language users who experience barriers to mainstream weight loss programs and the social support they offer. While those programs may feel isolating or out of reach, results from a clinical trial conducted by the UR CTSI's National Center for Deaf Health Research show that a specialized weight loss program designed for Deaf people by Deaf people helped participants lose weight.

Over six months, Deaf sign language users who participated in the program, called Deaf Weight Wise, lost an average of 12.5 pounds, and 62 percent of them lost at least five percent of their baseline weight, a level deemed “clinically meaningful.” On the other hand, Deaf sign language users in the control group only lost an average of 5 pounds during the same period and only 18 percent experienced clinically meaningful weight loss.

Learn more about the first-of-its-kind clinical trial in the URMC Newsroom.

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Michael Hazard | 5/8/2023

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