Step-down approaches have been implicated as having potential for effective treatment of eating disorders (e.g. binge eating disorder; Masheb & Grilo, 2007) and have been used to a limited extent in weight loss interventions. Bauer, de Niet, Tinman, and Kordy (2010) found successful effects of stepping down children enrolled in a 3-month intensive weight loss intervention to 9 months of less intensive follow-up (check-ins via a messaging system). However, this study was designed to primarily measure the effectiveness of maintenance treatment. Because they did not include a non-stepped care control group and the sample included only children, conclusions about the efficacy of a step-down approach relative to standard treatment in adults are not clear. As of yet, no published study has compared a step-down model with a standard BWLP..