Factors influencing adults to drop out of intensive lifestyle interventions for weight loss.

Weight loss is hard. The best way to do it is to enroll in an intervention that includes frequent sessions with a health coach who uses cognitive-behavioral techniques to help participants improve their eating and physical activity habits. Retaining participants in these types of intervention is a challenge for health practitioners and researchers. Our objective was to identify the factors that increase the participants' risk of dropping out of the intervention. We analyzed the data of 268 Mexican adults who participated in studies that evaluated intensive lifestyle interventions for weight loss. We found that participants who are younger, experience more pain, and whose health coaches are replaced before the intervention is completed have a higher risk of dropping out of the intervention. By accounting for these factors when designing the intervention, we could increase the chances that participants stay in the intervention until the end. This way they are more likely to be successful in losing weight.