>TORONTO, CANADA: People regularly overeat on the weekend, which can sabotage their weight-loss efforts and lead to a gain of nearly 4.5kg by the end of the year, new research shows.
Participants in a Washington University School of Medicine study consistently ate more from Friday through Monday than they did during the week, with Saturday being the worst day for overeating.
The Washington University study, published in the online edition of the journal Obesity, is the first to show that people eat more calories on most weekends.
"This is just one of those many factors that can hinder weight-loss or weight-control efforts," said Dr Susan Racette, the study's lead author and an assistant professor of physical therapy and medicine at Washington University in St Louis.
The study followed 48 adults aged 50 to 60 over the period of a year.
"When people were just doing their own thing, they consistently gained weight on weekends," Dr Racette said.
Some of that weight gained - an average of 0.18kg on the weekend - would be lost again during the week - but not all of it, thereby leading to cumulative weight gain over time.
"If someone is not really trying to follow any particular diet prescription," she said, "it could lead to an almost 4kg weight gain at the end of the year if they repeated this pattern every weekend."
She added that "having a little more freedom once a week can be helpful as long as you don't take that to an extreme". -- REUTERS
