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Once you get overweight, you'll never lose weight again.
Last reviewed: 30.06.2025
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Scientists have come to the conclusion that once you gain weight, you will never lose it. Diets can help, but only for a short time. The vast majority of people who diet will still gain the kilos.
A long-term study of nearly 25,000 women and men by a team of scientists from the government's Medical Research Council found that when people start to gain weight in middle age, the trend gets worse over time.
According to experts, people organizing healthy lifestyle campaigns would be better off not wasting their energy on promoting diets, but thinking about how to prevent weight gain in the first place.
Indeed, 12 million people try to diet every year. And only 10% of them manage to lose a significant amount of kilograms. Meanwhile, within a year, people from this group will gain the weight back.
The researchers specifically followed 5,362 men and women born in 1946 and 20,000 people, most of whom were born in 1958. People in both groups began gaining weight in the 1980s. And from there, their weight only increased.
In men, weight gain occurs gradually throughout life. "In women, weight gain starts slowly but peaks around age 35. Once the weight is gained, it is impossible to get rid of it, because people only get fatter, despite trying to lose the kilos," comments Hardy of the Medical Research Council.
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