Lack of seasonal variation in eating attitudes and behaviours among female college students

Objectives: Previous studies have found a season of birth effect for women with eating disorders. However, findings regarding the two types of season of birth (i.e. month of birth and temperature at conception) have been conflicting, and few studies have examined relationships between season of birth and general disordered eating in non-clinical populations. The present study sought to examine this relationship more closely by investigating both month of birth and temperature at conception in undergraduate women. Method: Subjects included 427 undergraduate females from a large university in the United States. Disordered eating in the areas of body dissatisfaction, compensatory behaviour, binge eating and weight preoccupation was assessed with the Minnesota Eating Behaviors Survey (MEBS). Results: No significant mean differences in MEBS scores were found between those individuals born in the first versus second half of the year. Furthermore, no significant associations were found between disordered eating and temperature at conception. Discussion: Our findings suggest that disordered eating symptoms do not show a season of birth effect. Discrepancies between these findings and those for clinical samples suggest the possible presence of different aetiological mechanisms for general eating symptoms versus clinical eating disorders. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.