A successful behavioral weight-loss program for moderately-retarded teenagers.

The present study assessed the usefulness of a behavioral weight-reduction program for moderately-retarded young adults. The behavior treatment involved exposure of 12 subjects to external and self-reinforcement, stimulus control, simplified self-monitoring and energy-expenditure produces over a 14-week active training period. The behavior-therapy subjects lost significantly more weight than a wait-list control group. There was no significant difference in weight lost between behavior-therapy subjects exposed to the techniques live and those exposed to the techniques via video-tape playback of the live sessions. Weight loss for the behavior-therapy subjects containued to occur during five-week maintenance and 16-week follow-up periods.