Will Hormonal Contraception Make Me Fat?

Many young women worry about weight gain. To compare changes in weight during the first year of use of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate, the etonogestrel implant, the levonorgestrel intrauterine system, and the copper intrauterine device, researchers for the Contraceptive CHOICE project assessed the weights of 427 participants before initiation of contraception and after12 months of continuous use.

Twelve-month mean weight change was highly variable across the study population, ranging from a loss of >8 kg to a gain of >16 kg. In models adjusted for age and race, however, no significant differences in weight change were seen among the four contraceptive methods. Notably, regardless of method, black women gained more weight than women of oth…