Talk:Slimming World

The section "Food Optimising" ended in a sentence "Syn values are not simply based on calories, but", which didn't make sense, nor was I able to guess or find out what to end it with. I have therefore deleted it, as it does not detract from the article. Refsworldlee(chew-fat) 23:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

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Efficacy
The efficacy section states this

"In common with most other weight loss programmes, Slimming World's regime does not help achieve weight loss any better than increasing exercise levels alone."

But that is not what the citation concludes at all. The cited reference concludes this:

"Commercially provided weight management services are more effective and cheaper than primary care based services led by specially trained staff, which are ineffective."

I believe the efficacy section needs to be removed as you can various different studies that draw contradictory conclusions. therefore you just need to find a study that correlates with the point that you want to make and cite it, even if there are other studies are out there that say otherwise. Case and point, reference 13 and reference 14 in the article contradict each other.

217.33.47.30 (talk) 15:44, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

As previously discussed with Alexbrn on his talk page, I agree that the efficacy section should be updated. I have a COI as I work in the Slimming World PR team and so would like to invite the views of the Wikipedia community. Currently the efficacy section states:

"A comparative study of 2011 found that, in common with some other weight loss programmes used in primary care, Slimming World's regime did not help people achieve weight loss any better than increasing exercise levels alone."

The statement, which cites a study in the British Medical Journal, does not reflect the conclusion of the paper, which was that "commercially provided weight management services are more effective and cheaper than primary care based services led by specially trained staff, which are ineffective." The current statement implies that the study found that Slimming World is no more effective at helping people to lose weight than 'exercise alone'. However, as the study did not control for food intake among the exercise comparator, it cannot be concluded that the participants did not also make changes to their diet and the authors state: "This activity was probably insufficient to account for weight loss in the comparator group, and this weight loss probably represents what might be achieved by people responding to a spur to action."

In 2014, a follow up study by the same authors was published in the British Journal of General Practice. This study also found that weight losses achieved through commercial providers were greater than those following NHS programmes. The paper concluded: "In the short term all commercial weight-loss programmes appear to result in similar weight loss but the NHS alternative appears to produce less weight loss. At 12 months Slimming World led to greater weight loss but the differences between commercial programmes was small and of minor clinical importance."

The Identifying reliable sources (medicine) page states that: "The medical guidelines or position statements produced by nationally or internationally recognised expert bodies often contain an assessment of the evidence as part of the report." In May 2014, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published guidelines for 'Managing overweight and obesity in adults – lifestyle weight management services'. Point 12 recognised Slimming World, alongside other providers, as being effective at 12 months.

I just wanted to post these sources for discussion among the community. I would suggest that any changes should be made by participants without any conflict of interest.

LeighGreenwood (talk) 08:24, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The CRD summary states simply this: "The authors concluded that the only programme to achieve statistically significantly greater weight loss than exercise only was Weight Watchers". That's a strong RS. The later study is a primary source and fails WP:MEDRS. Alexbrn (talk) 08:44, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

The Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine) page states: "the Wikipedia community relies on the guidance of expert reviews, and statements of major medical and scientific bodies, to provide guidance on any given issue." In May 2014, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published guidelines for 'Managing overweight and obesity in adults – lifestyle weight management services'. Point 12 recognised Slimming World, alongside other providers, as being effective at 12 months. NICE makes its public health recommendations based on the best available evidence and this document provides an overview of the current understanding of the topic from an authoritative source. I think it would be helpful for the community to discuss this if possible.

The reliable sources page says that secondary sources are used "usually to provide an overview of the current understanding of a medical topic, to make recommendations, or to combine the results of several studies." The quoted CRD summary is only a review of that one study and doesn't provide an overview. This BMC secondary source acknowledges the limitations of the BMJ study in comparing commercial providers: "further analysis of Jolly et al. suggests the apparent impact of the WW intervention may have been atypically high. In the two other commercial providers (Slimming World and Rosemary Conley), mean weight loss at 12 months was smaller than WW, yet a much larger comparison (n = 3000) of the three providers in the routine Lighten-Up referral service shows that mean self-reported weight loss at 1 year in those attending WW was very close to the mean weight loss across all providers." The further analysis that this study is referring to is the research published in the British Journal of General Practice research which found that all were similarly effective, with Slimming World members losing the most weight.

The Wikipedia policy outlined at No original research states that unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia; but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." So a primary source can be valid alongside a secondary source. However, my thinking would be that the NICE recommendations are based on the best available evidence and this provides the most authoritative overview of the subject of the efficacy of Slimming World.

Thanks for your thoughts.

LeighGreenwood (talk) 13:13, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, the NICE source is good: added. CRD summaries are good too (it's the only reason why the comparative study is admissible). Alexbrn (talk) 13:55, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Sin vs Syn
I believe that the appropriate spelling is SYN, and shouldn't this be linked to the SYN disambiguation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ahremsee (talk • contribs) 16:27, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes that is correct. The correct spelling is syn (short for synergy)

Updated figures and information
A lot of the figures posted in the article are now out of date and there have been some developments in other areas. Please find below links to up-to-date information including details of Slimming World’s recently introduced partnership with the Royal College of Midwives which may be of interest for the pregnancy section of this article. I’d like to declare a conflict of interest as I am a senior public relations officer for Slimming World and so am following the CIPR draft guidelines for PR professionals using Wikipedia:

There are now 9,000 groups rather than 6,000: http://www.slimmingworld.com/about-us/about-slimming-world.aspx Slimming World has now raised £2.5m for charity rather than £2m: http://www.slimmingworld.com/information/smiles.aspx In February 2012 Slimming World magazine entered the UK top 10 of most actively purchased UK magazines for the first time. It is the most actively purchased diet and health magazine in the UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/table/2012/feb/16/abcs-consumer-magazines http://www.slimmingworld.com/press-articles/120212-slimming-world-magazine-top10.aspx Slimming World on Referral has now had over 100 schemes and helped 100,000 patients. http://www.slimmingworld.com/health/swor/what-is-swor.aspx The link also has details of published evidence. In October 2011, the Family Affair programme was praised by Dr Hilary on ITV Lorraine. This might not be considered suitable for the article: http://www.itv.com/lorraine/health/slimming-world-kids/ Slimming World works in partnership with the Royal College of Midwives and is the only national slimming organisation to support pregnant women and breastfeeding mums: http://www.rcm.org.uk/college/about/media-centre/press-releases/slimming-world-and-royal-college-of-midwives-launch-partnership-30-01-12/ Slimming World’s ‘Body Optimise’ programme has been renamed as ‘Slimming World Online’ Thanks for reading. LeighGreenwood (talk) 14:23, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

UPDATE: Following consultation through the Wikipedia platform with experienced user ItsZippy, I have made some amendments to the Slimming World Wikipedia article. These have included a greater level of depth on Slimming World's focus on the psychological aspect of weight loss - cited on the Slimming World health website. I have also included information about the Slimming World symposium at the European Congress on Obesity 2013, on the important role of compassion, care and understanding in weight loss, as this is very relevant in explaining this approach. I have provided links to the Slimming World evidence base where appropriate and updated requests for citations where possible. I have provided information with references to a partnership with the Royal College of Midwives and to Slimming World's part in the Public Health Responsibility Deal. Finally I have updated statistics such as the money raised for the Slimming World SMILES charity, the Slimming World Magazine circulation figures and the number of patients referred to Slimming World by the NHS. I have included citations for all of this information as advised. My intention is only to provide a more in-depth, informative and up-to-date page for the Wikipedia community users who might wish to find out more about Slimming World. I am very willing to discuss my inclusions further at any point. LeighGreenwood (talk) 16.36, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

UPDATE 8th November 2016

For the efficacy section: An independent study by the University of Oxford has been published in The Lancet exploring the impact of a 30-second intervention by GP's raising the issue of weight with patients who have a raised BMI. In the trial, patients were randomised to one of two arms, in the first they were offered referral to a commercial weight management group (mainly Slimming World groups) and in the second they were told that their health would benefit from losing weight. The study found that: ″Over the 12 months of the trial, a similar proportion of people in both groups had taken some action to lose weight, but approximately five times more people in the referral group had taken effective action″ The study also states that: ″In this trial, these programmes were provided mainly by Slimming World (Alfreton, UK).″ The study can be found here: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)31893-1/fulltext This is an independently conducted randomised trial and so the findings should be added to the efficacy section.

For the company history section: You can find updated figures for Slimming World's membership, referral programme, charity work and magazine circulation through the company factsheet which is available for download at: http://www.slimmingworld.co.uk/press

The factbox in the top right is also very outdated.

I have a COI as am the Corporate PR Manager for Slimming World and so would appreciate another community member taking a look at this please.

LeighGreenwood (talk) 16:56, 8 November 2016 (UTC)


 * The RCT is a primary source and so not considered reliable for health claims (see WP:MEDRS). If any company information appears in independent secondary sources it my be worth including, but the information on a company factsheet is not in itself necessarily encyclopedic. However, I don't see any objection if you updated the existing simple factual information yourself, from the company souce. Alexbrn (talk) 17:06, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Censorship
Form the talk page I can see the article used to explain what 'SYNS'. has this information been censored out? I should not need to join Slimming World tofind out, even Google quotes 'SYNS' when giving results for foods. Stub Mandrel (talk) 20:37, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
 * This is an encyclopedia. If you want direct information on SW's products visit their web site. Alexbrn (talk) 20:41, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Neutrality
Have added the POV check template. Parts of this article sound overly promotional (e.g. "Slimming World works in partnership with the Royal College of Midwives and is the first national slimming organisation to support pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers."; "Slimming World's charity, 'SMILES'...has raised more than £2,500,000 for charity." followed by a primary source). I doubt it's intentional, but I think the article needs work to reach a neutral POV. Klock101 (talk) 20:29, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

'Diet overview'?
The 'Diet overview' section contains no information about diet. 2A00:23EE:18E8:714:D4CD:FF66:12B8:A607 (talk) 19:02, 9 April 2024 (UTC)