The psychological effects of dieting are also important to consider. Concern about the negative consequences of weight loss was sparked, in part, by an experimental study conducted with normal-weight men who were rapidly reduced to 75 percent of their initial body weight. After weight loss, many of these participants exhibited diiculty concentrating, binge eating, and irritable and depressed mood. Although this type of dieting clearly has negative consequences, the relevance of these phenomena to overweight and obese individuals is questionable. Dieting has been frequently implicated in the etiology of eating disorders. Young females who diet are at increased risk of developing an eating disorder, compared to nondieters. However, while dieting may be a necessary precursor to an eating disorder, it is probably not a suicient cause of one. Experimental studies suggest that a third variable may explain the relationship between dieting and eating disorder onset in some women. In fact, when normal-weight young women are placed on a short, moderate weight-loss diet, their disordered eating decreases, rather than increases. Similarly, patients with bulimia nervosa who report frequent dieting actually binge and purge signiicantly less than patients who infrequently diet, raising further questions about the relationship between dietary restriction and eating disorder symptoms. It is possible that dieting is more likely to increase risk for an eating disorder when it is done by young women, when weight is lost rapidly or through unhealthy methods, or when the dieter is normal weight or underweight when they begin dieting. In contrast, research has shown that in overweight youth, professionally administered weight-loss programs pose minimal risk of precipitating eating disorders and actually result in signiicant improvements in psychological status. Similarly, dieting and weight loss in overweight adults is not associated with the development of eating disorders. Although some studies have identiied a link between dieting and disinhibited eating, more consistent evidence indicates that weight-loss programs that prescribe modest caloric restriction do not precipitate binge eating. In fact, for individuals who experience binge eating, traditional behavioral weight-loss programs typically result in signiicant reductions in binge eating. Even more promising, when obese binge eaters lose weight, some improvements in their binge eating are sustained even when weight is regained. Several studies have found that weight-loss dieting in obese adults is associated with improvements in depression, anxiety, and related outcomes. However, because most of these data were collected from studies of behavioral weight-loss treatment, it is diicult to determine whether these beneits are a consequence of dieting, of weight loss, or of behavioral treatment. Nonetheless, iatrogenic efects of dieting have not typically been observed; even when periods of weight regain follow dieting, it does not appear to have any signiicant, negative impact on mood, weight-related cognitions, or other psychological outcomes.
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