I too have been wondering about Noom and appreciate the review. Anyone else here use it?
I did Noom for a while before I committed to surgery. I felt like it wasn't unlike many other programs. The coaching was nice, and it did provide many tips and strategies that people can use, I don't think it really proposed anything new or groundbreaking as far as diet and losing weight goes. It encourages eating things that are high in water to help hydrate and feel full, and tries to take a more psychological approach. I am sure it works for some people, at least temporarily. However, like all diets, it still requires caloric restriction, and I think for people who are significantly obese, it is impossible for any diet program to address the biological signals our brain sends out when we restrict calories (the leptin response specifically, and others).
I think it might be helpful for people who are just a bit "overweight" and can probably work through and improve their choices around foods before they move into the obese category, but it is really, really hard to successfully lose weight and keep it off after we are in the obese range. It is possible for some people though, but if most people were successful at dieting, it wouldn't be a multi-billion dollar industry because people would just diet, lose weight and keep it off easily. Most people gain it back and move on to another program or repeat the cycle several times.
What really needs to happen is instead of healthy foods being more expensive in this country, processed and convenience foods should be more expensive. We should be incentivising healthy food choices instead of making it easy for people to eat food that makes us more and more unhealthy and drives up disease and shortens life spans. Obviously, that is easier said that done, for many reasons, but as long as processed and unhealthy food is cheaper than healthy food, we are going to continue to have a crisis.
