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The authors compared college women with various levels of dietary restraint (42 nondieters, 23 medium-restraint, 36 chronic dieters) on measures of body image, personality and psychopathology, family environment, and eating- and weight-related concerns. Chronic dieters displayed significantly higher scores on body distortion, drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction, feelings of ineffectiveness, and depression and schizophrenia on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI). There were no differences in locus of control or reported family environment. Drive for thinness and body dissatisfaction increased linearly with degree of dietary restraint. By contrast, greater body distortion, ineffectiveness, and some psychological maladjustment (as measured by the MMPI) qualitatively differentiated the chronic-dieting group. These variables may point to continuities between chronic dieting and the development of eating disorders.
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Cachelin et al. (1997) studied this question.
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