Meal Replacements Do Not Help Teens Lose Weight

Meal replacements such as shakes and prepackaged food may seem like a convenient and effective way to lose weight, since the packaged meals claim to be low calorie and where all the thinking and planning is done for you. However new research shows that these meal replacements are not an effective weight loss tool.

meal replacementsAccording to researchers led by Dr. Robert L. Berkowitz of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, these meal replacements are no more effective than a standard low calorie diet and that these could actually boost the weight of obese teens in the early stage of dieting.

Meal replacements are seen to be an effective weight loss tool for adults since it can take the guesswork out of dieting.

Having a proscribed and pre-prepared meal means you are having only X amount of calories, whereas one can seriously underestimate one’s intake otherwise.

Researchers put 113 teens on one of three different kinds of diets for a year and observed that those who were on the low calorie diet program, lost the weight most; more than those who were on the meal replacement diet.

This led the researchers to the conclusion that meal replacements are not an effective way for teens to lose weight and that more research is required to find out what is the best way to help them do so.