People who diet and exercise are less likely to lose body weight during the weekend, new findings have suggested.
In a study supported by the National Institutes of Health, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine discovered that people did not lose as much weight on a weekend because they were eating more and exercising less.
"We thought weekends would present a problem for some people attempting to lose weight, but the consistency of our finding before and during the interventions was surprising," said Dr Susan B Racette.
A number of different lifestyle changes such as increased leisure time on a weekend meant that people were struggling to lose weight.
"On weekends, human lifestyle patterns can be very different. People have social events, parties to attend, and if they have children who play sports, they might be at fields all day long, relying on concession stands for food," added Dr Racette.
Research by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey revealed that around 67 million American adults are obese, and an additional 75 million are overweight.
