The Ancestral Weight Control Registry ~ This is a joke, right?

< gloat > LOL! I scooped Gary Taubes  on the

 announcement of the "Insurgency" < /gloat >

Hee hee hee ...

But onwards and upwards.  Apparently a medical student is getting tired of reading about the National Weight Control Registry, NWCR, and is bothered by the fact that the vast majority of registrants achieved their success with more traditional calorie restricted programs.  You know, that Eat Less Move More, ELMM,  that "doesn't work" (just don't tell those prospective JumpStartMD clients). Gary gushes: 

The next order of business is an exciting and promising project. My friend Larry Istrail is a medical student at Virginia Commonwealth University. He’s recently created the Ancestral Weight Loss Registry, to collect and publish data on individuals who have tried to lose weight with a paleo/carbohydrate-restricted diet. He’s also spent much of the last few years compiling clinical data on many aspects of carb-restricted eating in the related science section, such as the efficacy of such diets for weight loss or the effects of saturated fats and cholesterol intake on heart disease. Tara Parker-Pope’s article in The New York Times claimed that the National Weight Control Registry (about which I could easily fill up a few blog posts with criticisms) has some 10,000 people registered in over 15 years. We’re hoping that the  Ancestral Weight Loss Registry will beat that in a few months. Using this kind of self-selected data to do good science is tricky if not perhaps impossible, but it will be interesting to see what happens.

Let's start with that last sentence, shall we?  Yes, it sure is "tricky" to use self-selected data like this.  The only interesting thing here is that someone who supposedly knows better than anyone else what constitutes good science would even tout this joke.  Let's go look at the website. 

The Ancestral Weight Loss Registry is an international assembly of people who have tried a carbohydrate-restricted or paleo diet to lose weight or improve their health. Whether you lost 100 pounds or gained 20, we want to hear about it.

And I'm an internationally known blogger.  They want to hear if you've gained weight!  Yeah ... right ... LOL.

Why Join? Share your experience and help those beginning their new way of eating. As thousands register from all over the world, we hope to uncover the most effective practices for losing weight on a diet high in vegetables, protein and fats.

Fred Hahn already knows the most effective practice.  Why is Istrail even bothering?  Do you see anything missing on this appeal for membership?  How about the real focus of NWCR -- MAINTENANCE.  Nothing about that anywhere on the front page.  The NWCR, on the other hand:

The National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), established in 1994 by Rena Wing, Ph.D. from Brown Medical School, and James O. Hill, Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, is the largest prospective investigation of long-term successful weight loss maintenance. Given the prevailing belief that few individuals succeed at long-term weight loss, the NWCR was developed to identify and investigate the characteristics of individuals who have succeeded at long-term weight loss. The NWCR is tracking over 10,000 individuals who have lost significant amounts of weight and kept it off for long periods of time. Detailed questionnaires and annual follow-up surveys are used to examine the behavioral and psychological characteristics of weight maintainers, as well as the strategies they use to maintaining their weight losses.

Let's see what we need to join NWCR.  For one thing, you have to have lost a minimum of 30 lbs and KEPT IT OFF for at least a year.  The criteria for joining the AWLR?  Laughable -- we don't care how much you've lost or gained, we want to hear from you?  This IS a joke ... right?   At right (you can click to enlarge) is the preliminary survey you fill out to join NWCR.

Note:  "If you think you may be eligible to join the registry, please complete the form below or call us toll free at 1-800-606-NWCR (6927). To receive information on participating in the registry, you MUST provide us with a mailing address (we cannot send information to you via the Internet)."

I completed this first step a couple of years ago and received a packet in the mail.  It was a thick pamphlet in a large envelope  (8.5x11).  Yes detailed and quite long.  I still have it here somewhere... it came at a busy time so I never filled it out to send it back.  (Thus it got put "somewhere safe" never to be seen again ).  In any case, as I recall this was a very detailed survey with lots of accountability, and you will be sent follow-up surveys and such. In a word, there's a lot of ACCOUNTABILITY.  You have to give them your mailing address, and as memory serves you must provide some visual verification of your weight loss.  Not a lot of optional there.

Look, I have an email in my possession that one of the weight loss success stories in The New Atkins has not kept her weight off.   If there's no accountability to be included in a prominent diet book such as that one, what are we to expect with the AWLS?  Let's take a look at their Join page, shall we?

Your data on carb-restricted eating is priceless to us. Please answer each question as completely and accurately as possible. All information will remain confidential. The aggregate anonymized data may be used to discover trends and commonalities among all registry members.

Before and after pictures preferred but not required.
You can upload before and after pictures at the end of the questionnaire if you lost or gained weight. The data we receive with these pictures will be analyzed separately since it is is of higher integrity.

The truth will set you free.
Please do not enter false data. This is a medical student's quest to illuminate the truth about diets high in meats, vegetables and fats. We also have some clever statistical methods to detect falsified data, so please be honest.

ROFL -- Instead of relying on some basic time tested means of verifying information, they'll be using some clever statistical methods to ferret out false info.  Real scientific, eh Gary?  You should be embarrassed!!  Moving on. 

1. Name (optional)  WTF?????   Name is optional?  
2. Email - the popup promises no spam, cautions only one registration per month per email
3. Demographic info
4. Address?  The closest they get is country, state and zip code.  Oooh!
5. Before, After and duration of weight loss
6. EDIT:  It has been brought to my attention that the original "How long to lose 10% of BW" was incorrect.  The question was if you've lost 10% how long have you maintained that with LC. 
7. Is your family fat?  Because we really need to get to the bottom of this genetics/environment thing
8. Why did you go LC or paleo
9. What plan
10. How many grams carbs per day
11. Did you count calories?  If so how many did you consume per day
12. Percent cals from protein and fat
13. Exercise .... type and frequency
14. How often did you weigh yourself
15. Did you transition into LC?
16. Side effects of the diet ... initially, after first week
17. Other health improvements
18. Blood panel changes
19. Hunger and appetite
20. Did you try low calorie diets in the past?  Compare hunger and energy levels
21. Types of foods:  Protein sources, Veggie choices, Grains & Starches, Fat types
22. Would you like to be featured on our blog?  Tell us your success story!  (Don't we have enough of these already??)
23. Biggest challenge
24. Advice you have
25. Before & After pics -- OPTIONAL

Ahhhhh .... very scientific.  Here's the last part:

Can we follow up with you every 3-6 months to see how you are doing? (If you choose yes, please make sure your e-mail address in entered correctly above.)

You can answer NO.  But if you answer yes, please do make sure the email is correct.  Otherwise, don't bother because we're not even going to be bothering to verify email addresses.  Feel free to fill out this survey from each email you own or don't own.  Make shit up all you want ... just beware, we have very special double secret statistical methods to catch you if you lie!  Really!!  No ... really really!!  Don't lie or we will send out the fraud patrol to spam your fake email address.

What a JOKE.  

Notice ANYTHING missing here?  They don't even ask the key question:  

How long have you kept your weight off?

EDIT:  It's been brought to my attention that I read one of the survey questions wrong so the above is a misstatement.  I'm human and sometimes I misread when reading nonsense too fast.  The weight loss to qualify for the NWCR is 30 lbs minimum for one year.  So accurate answers to this question would only be relevant to folks who weighted at least 300 lbs to begin with.  And I guess if someone transitioned to a higher carb diet they would be disqualified from AWLS.  This also doesn't address the greater point, NWCR is about maintenance of significant losses, AWLS is more interested in touting the weight loss w/o accountability.  /EDIT

The NWCR asks that question and then some, because they are interested in knowing if their 100 lb success story has regained and relost 400 lbs over a period of five years.  And more importantly, the whole purpose of the registry is to study effective means of truly successful meaningful weight loss.  In other words, as even Tara Parker-Pope admitted, weight loss is relatively easy.  It's keeping it off that's hard.  THAT was the point of the article, no matter how defeatist an attitude Tara had. 

Mr. Taubes:  There's a reason the NWCR has so few members in 15 years.  Because they VERIFY the info and, sadly, few qualify once you put that "kept it off for at least a year" qualifier in there.  Atkins sold millions of diet books over four decades.  There is NOTHING stopping all of these internet weight loss wonders on low carb plans from joining.  Indeed if memory serves, Atkins website used to have a link to the registry encouraging folks to join to promote the lifestyle.  

If you are a genuine weight loss success and maintainer and have used low carb or paleo to achieve that, JOIN THE NWCR.   Don't waste everyone's time with this idiotic exercise.

Maybe Schlock & Flaw should be changed to Schlock and AWLS.  Sheesh ... I really didn't think Taubes could get any more ridiculous.   I'm eagerly awaiting his several part criticism blog about the NWCR.  They put too much emphasis on maintenance and verifiability I suppose ....