Effects of a weight maintenance diet on bulimic symptoms in adolescent girls: An experimental test of the dietary restraint theory

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.