The initiation and the maintenance of dieting: structural models for large-scale longitudinal investigations.

OBJECTIVE

Female adolescents who engage in weight loss dieting often experience negative physical and psychological consequences. To reduce the occurrence of dieting, we need information about the factors associated with its initiation and maintenance. This paper outlines two separate structural models developed specifically for that purpose.

METHOD

The theoretical rationale that informed the development of each of the models was derived from careful reviews of the literature on disordered eating, and from relevant psychological theoretical and empirical literature.

RESULTS

Separate theoretical models are identified for the initiation of dieting, in which the core component is social influence, and for the maintenance of dieting, which assumes that differences in the persistence of dieting are best understood as motivational. Each model also incorporates individual differences and variables that are hypothesized to mediate the specific effects on dieting or to operate as moderators of the relationship.

DISCUSSION

The operationalization of the components of the models and their application within large-scale longitudinal studies are discussed in relation to the need for systematic investigations of the way dieting begins and how it escalates or is maintained.