Dieting and attributions for dieting failure: relevance to eating disorder symptoms in young women

Abstract

This study was designed to clarify the role of dieting and attributions for weight maintenance failure in the severity of eating disorders. It was hypothesised that (i) past dieters would have more severe eating disorder symptoms than those who had never dieted; (ii) women with more severe eating disorder symptoms would attribute weight loss maintenance failure to more internal, uncontrollable, stable and global causes than those with less severe symptoms and; (iii) women who attribute failure to more stable causes would be less likely to attempt dieting again than those who attribute failure to more unstable causes. Female university students (N=202) completed a questionnaire which included the Restraint scale, the 5 Attributional Dimension scale and the Eating Attitudes Test - 26. The results demonstrated an association between dieting behaviour and eating disorder severity. No support was found for the hypothesis that internal, global, stable attributions affect eating disorder severity, however, some support was found for the view that the controllability of weight maintenance relates to eating disorder severity. These results are discussed in terms of previous research and implications for theory and research are made.