Table 3.

Prevalence of weight control strategies and strategies associated with losing ≥5% and ≥10% body weight

Strategy	Prevalence among all obese participants, %	≥5% weight loss OR (95% CI)*	≥10% weight loss OR (95% CI)*
Ate less food	65.0	**	**
Exercised
No (ref)		1.00	1.00
Yes	55.1	1.29 (1.05, 1.60)	1.36 (1.12, 1.65)
Ate less fat
No (ref)		1.00	1.00
Yes	43.7	1.41 (1.14, 1.75)	1.37 (1.04, 1.79)
Drank lots of water
No (ref)		1.00
Yes	40.5	1.24 (0.99, 1.56)	**
Switched to foods with lower calories	40.5	**	**
Skipped meals
No (ref)			1.00
Yes	18.5	**	1.27 (0.96, 1.69)
Followed a special diet	15.4	**	**
Ate diet foods or products
No (ref)		1.00	1.00
Yes	13.8	0.69 (0.48, 1.01)	0.48 (0.31, 0.72)
Took other pills, medicines, herbs, or supplements not needing a prescription	10.2	**	**
Joined a weight loss program
No (ref)		1.00	1.00
Yes	9.9	1.24 (0.99, 1.56)	1.72 (1.00, 2.96)
Used a liquid diet formula	7.2	**	**
Took diet pills prescribed by a doctor
No (ref)		1.00	1.00
Yes	3.5	1.77 (1.00, 3.13)	2.05 (1.09, 3.86)
Other method***	18.7	**	**

^*The model was adjusted for gender, age, education, race/ethnicity, education level, income, self-reported health status, smoking status, diabetes status, BMI, and survey year. Strategies were retained in the model if they met significance at the p<0.10 level.

^**Did not meet criteria for retention in the model

^***Other method category includes those choosing “other method,” or other specified methods with cell sizes <50, or those choosing “ate fewer carbohydrates,” which was available only in the 2005–2006 survey year.