Principles of Diet and Behaviour Intervention

Diet, behaviour and lifestyle change are the cornerstone of weight management at all levels, but are difficult to implement. The chance of success improves in motivated individuals, of course, but identifying motivated individuals or facilitating motivation is itself a challenge.

Motivation

Assessing motivation to change in obese individuals is not a well-understood science, and few robust resources are available to evaluate this. Motivation assessment tools have been described, but are either simple and limited in scope, or detailed and impractical for routine use.

Examples of motivation assessment tools are linked from the clinical materials page under our "Resources" section.

The "cycle of change" model was described by psychologists Prochaska and Di Clemente in the eighties, and is sometimes used to identify individuals most likely to benefit from weight loss measures.