Dieting and Eating Disorders Dieting

¶ … Dieting and Eating Disorders

Dieting in obese women does not increase binge eating and actually increases self-esteem. These are the findings of the latest study from the Department of Psychiatry, Weight and Eating Disorders Program, run by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The study was conducted by Thomas Wadden, Gary Foster, David Sarwer, Drew Anderson, Madeline Gladis, Rebecca Sanderson, RV Letchak, Robert Berkowitz and Suzanne Phelan, and was published in the September, 2004 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Much of the thinking that links dieting behavior to uncontrolled eating is based on research done with moderately overweight people, who were often already showed signs of eating disorders. There was no research to show what effect following different diets would have on women with more weight to lose. The tendency was to believe that restricting caloric intake would create feelings of deprivation and make it more likely for an eating disorder to develop.

The authors of this study set out to investigate whether different diets, with different levels of caloric restriction, would lead to an increase in eating disorders, specifically binge eating. They also wanted to investigate whether being on a diet made women feel more depressed, and lowered their self-esteem. This was an important question for developing the optimal health result. On the one hand, the obese women had a lot of weight to lose. On the other hand, the health benefits of losing the weight could be counterbalanced by negative health impacts, such as uncontrolled eating, or more serious depression.

This research into dieting and eating disorders looked at 123 obese women. The women were randomly divided into three different groups, and each group was given a different diet to follow. One group of women was put on a diet that consisted of 1000 calories per day, in the form of meal replacement shakes, and one meal of a frozen entree and salad. The second group was allowed to eat whatever food they wanted, as long as their total daily calorie intake stayed between 1200 and 1500 calories. The third group served as a comparison group. They were not put on a diet at all, they simply received information on healthy eating. All women received the same advice to increase physical activity, especially walking.

The women were followed for 40 weeks, with an additional follow-up visit at 65 weeks. The researchers took weekly measures in a variety of areas. These included body weight, episodes of binge eating, depression levels and difficulty sticking with the diet.

The different data from the groups were collected and measured statistically to see if there were any differences in the areas looked at in the study, in particular, if women on a low-calorie diet were more likely to develop a binge eating disorder.

The original belief of the researchers as they went into this study was that the women in the two diet conditions would be more likely than the non-dieting women to lose control of their eating habits. They also thought that the effect would be greater, the more strict the diet. In addition, it was believed that being on a diet would cause the women to feel more depressed. To their surprise, the results of the research show that being on a diet, even a strict one, did not increase the chances of binge eating. And the women on a diet reported feeling less depressed, and showed higher self-esteem.