Effects of a weight maintenance diet on bulimic symptoms in adolescent girls: an experimental test of the dietary restraint theory. |
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Authors: | Eric Stice Katherine Presnell Lisa Groesz Heather Shaw |
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Affiliation: | Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. estice@ori.org |
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Abstract: | It is widely accepted that dieting increases the risk for bulimia nervosa, but there have been few experimental tests of this theory. The authors conducted a randomized experiment with adolescent girls (N=188) to examine the effects of a weight maintenance diet on bulimic symptoms. A manipulation check verified that the diet intervention resulted in weight maintenance and significantly reduced the risk for obesity onset and weight gain observed in assessment-only controls. As hypothesized, the diet intervention resulted in significantly greater decreases in bulimic symptoms and negative affect than observed in controls. These experimental findings, which converge with those from a weight loss diet experiment, appear antithetical to dietary restraint theory and suggest instead that dietary restriction curbs bulimic symptoms. |
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