Rubbish!

I just read the most annoying and irresponsible study and I just need to complain about it. 

Entitled Home grocery delivery improves the household food environments of behavioral weight loss participants: Results of an 8-week pilot study, you can tell it’s useless just from the title—8 weeks? Nearly every diet/fitness plan in existence looks successful at the outset, and turns out to be unsustainable over time. And they even admit that no one was planning to continue the program after the study.

Gist is this:

Two groups—control and study—spend 8 weeks following a health regime of calorie restriction (1200-1500 daily), low fat (<30%), minimum 150 minutes weekly exercise. Study group were told to buy their groceries online and have them delivered, and the delivery fees were covered for them. At the end of the 8 weeks, the study group had fewer unhealthy food items in their homes than the controls.

That’s the title about “household food environments.”

More important:

They did not lose more weight, or show any difference in health improvements.

In addition to ordering online, they also got an individual session with a nutritionist who gave them tips on what to buy—hello, that is gonna have a bigger impact than shopping online!

They all said they would stop ordering online after the study, “perhaps” because they were unsatisfied with the price of food bought online. Can confirm, we ordered online groceries during covid, and the prices were a lot higher, in addition to the delivery fees. Having the fees reimbursed doesn’t make the groceries cost the same. 

Perhaps the study group had a better household food environment because they couldn’t afford treats or any extras at online prices? Perhaps having a session with a nutritionist was a factor? The authors of the study don’t even consider how these two huge factors would affect the outcome.

Groceries online are a huge pain. Definitely less likely to buy fresh produce—both because you can’t predict the quality, and you generally can’t control the quantity (they’re giving you 7 brown bananas, when you only wanted 3 green ones).

Useless study, and I’m annoyed to see it promoted in a newsletter I received. Blecch.

You know the best solution to avoid impulse purchases at the grocery store? Walk. And carry stuff home, We do it every week, it’s exercise, and at a point you say, “basket is too heavy, we’re done.” Of course not everyone has that luxury (similar to... the luxury of being able to get delivery…) but that’s a rant for another day.