A key, yet woefully underreported, conclusion to many health behavior change studies in the areas of weight, diabetes and/or blood pressure management; point to the importance of consistent and continuous support over time. This has evolved to be an essential component to help people achieve their health goals and support their efforts to continue practicing new found healthy lifestyle behaviors.

The big dilemma however, is how can the critically important support be delivered in a clinically-, cost-, and time-efficient and effective manner? Our healthcare system doesn’t seem able to support delivery of these costly and time-intensive services in person. The answer may well lie in the wonderful world of modern technology tool – THE INTERNET.

Efforts have been underway at the research level. Several researchers, including Debra Tate, PhD, Jean Harvey-Berino, PhD, RD, and Rena Wing, PhD; have been studying whether and how the internet can support both weight loss and long term weight control.

As research evolves many fee-based and free programs are now available to support your weight loss and control efforts.

· A few fee-based programs are: weightwatchers.com, calorieking.com and diet.com.

· A couple of programs delivered in groups are: uvm.edu/~vtrim and cmsnonline.com.

· A few free programs are: fitday.com, sparkpeople.com and putting your tax dollars to work: mypryamid.gov.

Get online and get the support you need to achieve and maintain your healthy lifestyle behavior changes. Then stick to it! Evidence supports that the people who are most successful get and stay engaged. Read Log On to Take it Off about how connecting online can help support your weight control efforts.