PERSONALITY AND OTHER CORRELATES OF DIETARY RESTRAINT - AN AGE BY SEX COMPARISON

Research in the area of restrained eating has tended to treat dieters as a homogeneous group and has paid little attention to the psychological, behavioural, and body composition variability among these individuals. The purpose of the present study was to determine the degree of association between restrained eating and a number of salient variables, and to investigate whether the pattern of relationships differs between the sexes and between young and middle-aged adults. It was found that the correlates of restrained eating do not display a consistent profile across all groups of dieters. For women, restraint was associated with greater emotional reactivity, body dissatisfaction, body focus, and body mass index (BMI). For younger women, greater exercise participation was also a significant correlate. Among the men there were a number of differences between the two age groups. For young men, only body dissatisfaction, exercise level, and BMI were positively related to restraint. Among older men, however, emotional reactivity, exercise participation, percent body fat, and BMI were all influential factors. Results are discussed in the context of specific social influences on men and women to control weight and enhance body image. Findings also underscore the need to use multivariate procedures to better understand the phenomenon of dieting and the psychology of dieters.