Comparison of the effects of nutrition on behavioral and cognitive components and body composition in individuals with intermittent and continuous energy restriction

Obesity is global public health problem with an increasing prevalance. Losing weight with lifestyle changes is the primary way for prevention of obesity in overweight and obese individuals. Intermittent fasting is an alternative way to medical nutritonal therapy of obesity. The purpuse of this study is comparing the effects of intermittent and continious energy restriction on body compositon and evoluate eating behaviour and cognitive companents of nutrition in overweight or obese individuals. The study was completed between April- September 2022, 34 individuals aged 19-64 years, who were overweight or obese people without any health problems admitted to nutrition consultancy center. In the study, the participants were divided into two groups and asked to maintain either the intermittent or continious energy restriction diet groups for 6 weeks. Demographic characteristics of individuals, lifestyle habits, health status, nutritional status and rating of eating behaviors evaluated with a questionnaire. The avarage age of the individuals is 37.1±8.67 years.When the participants in the two diet types were compared in terms of parameters, there is no statistically significant difference was found between anthropometric measurements, body copositions, blood pressure measurements and initial and final measurements of abdominal fat analysis (pα, pβ>0.05). At the end of the study the avarage weight loss of intermittent and continious energy restriction group were 3.9±1.94 kg and 4.0±1.48 kg respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in terms of body weight lost by women and men following the two types of diet. It was found that the change in the amount of visceral fat in women is less than the change in man. It has been observed that the men who follow the intermittent energy restriction diet have a greater reduction in the visceral fat than men who follow the continious energy restriction diet. According to the results of the Three Factor Nutrition Questionnaire conducted to rate the nutritional habits of individuals, a positive relationship was found between emotinal eating and age (for women r=0.481, p=0.015; for men r=0.723, p=0.028). According to the results of the end of study satisfaction survey applied to the individuals participating in the study at the end of the 6th week. The most of the participants in the two diet groups were answered that it was easy to follow diet, enough to meet their nutritional requirements, they were satisfied with the nutrition plan and they could continue to implement it. The long term efficacy and safety of time resticted nutrition in weight loss is still unclear. More comprehensive research is needed on this subject.