(PS7-20) Dieting Attitudes and Associations with Nutritionally Healthy Eating and Psychological Well-being

Dieting is positively related to body dissatisfaction, depression, and eating disorder symptomology in young adult females. Furthermore, dieting and restrained eating is a risk factor for binge eating.  What constitutes a “dieter” versus non-dieter, and how behaviors, nutritional intake, and psychological well-being differs between the two is not well understood. This study profiled eating styles among an ethnically diverse sample of dieting and non-dieting college-aged women (n=281) and explored the extent to which dieting attitudes were associated with both nutritionally healthy eating and psychological well-being. A latent profile analysis was conducted using indicators of self-reported intuitive eating, binge eating, and two psychometric measures of dietary restraint. Four distinct probabilistic profiles emerged, indicating that individuals within the study population could be meaningfully categorized as Intuitive Eaters, Unconcerned Eaters, Moderate Dieters, or Heavy Dieters. These profiles significantly differed on psychological measures of well-being, body appreciation, impulsivity, self-efficacy, food choice motivation, and BMI. Intuitive Eaters had more favorable outcomes on measures of psychological well-being. They also had the lowest BMI (mean= 21.67). No group differences were observed in regard to nutritional literacy and dietary intake. As endorsement of dieting attitudes increased, so too did incidence of negative outcomes such as depressed mood and binge-eating. These results suggest that intuitive eating attitudes are inversely related to the harmful effects of dietary restriction. This research contributes to the nascent literature on dieting and dieters, and the relationships between eating styles and psychological and other health outcomes. Additionally, the results provide support that adopting intuitive eating attitudes may be associated with psychological well-being and reduced likelihood of disordered eating. These findings also have important implications for clinical practice, such as the development of novel interventions to increase intuitive eating attitudes and deter against dieting and restraint.