Failed overweight dieters’ doubts that they apparently cannot keep excess weight at bay have recently been substantiated by scientists who believe that while diets may offer some help in terms of short-term weight loss, the lost weight usually comes back for the vast majority of dieters!

According to the findings of a long-term study – conducted by the Government-funded Medical Research Council (MRC) -, an observation of 25,000 men and women has shown that once people start piling on pounds in their middle age, their weight mostly keeps moving “relentlessly upwards.”

For the nearly six in 10 adult Britons who are either overweight or obese, the findings of the study are quite disheartening --- since the researchers claim that those who are overweight will stay that way no matter how hard they try to lose weight!

With the statistics revealing that while 12 million people try out a diet every year, barely 10 percent of them manage to lose any notable amount of weight, the study underscores the fact that instead of focusing efforts on diets, the spotlight of the health campaigners’ efforts should be largely on stopping people getting fat in the first place.

Reiterating that most of the overweight dieters who lose weight in the short term end up gaining it all back again within a year, MRC’s Rebecca Hardy told The Sunday Times: “A few lose weight but very few get back to normal. The best policy is to prevent people becoming overweight”!