Eating pathology, fat avoidance, and serum estradiol concentrations in young women
✍ Scribed by Rock, Cheryl L. ;Demitrack, Mark A. ;Drewnowski, Adam
- Publisher
- Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
- Year
- 1996
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 360 KB
- Volume
- 20
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0276-3478
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
9bjective: Pathological dieting in young women is a continuum of behavior, with bulimia nervosa representing the extreme end of the continuum. This cross-sectional study was conducted to describe the relationship between the degree of eating pathology and dietary intake of college-age women. The relationship between dietary intake and serum estradiol concentrations was also examined. Method: We evaluated the dietary intake of 69 women, defined according to degree of eating pathology with a questionnaire instrument. Three-day food records at follicular and luteal phases of one menstrual cycle, and serum estradiol concentrations at approximate menstrual cycle days 6, 2 1, and 28, were evaluated. Results: Greater degree of eating pathology was associated with significantly lower dietary fat and energy intake (p < .05). A trend for luteal phase energy intake to be related to serum estradiol concentration at day 28 (p = .06) was also observed. Discussion: Fat avoidance may be a useful indicator of increased risk for an eating disorder in young women. 0 7 996 by john Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Dieting is common among young women, and the clinically diagnosable eating disorders represent only the most extreme end of this spectrum of behavior (Drewnowski, Yee, Kurth, & Krahn, 1994). Avoidance of dietary fat has been reported to be characteristic of women who have an eating disorder when they are restricting intake to promote weight control (Weltzin, Hsu, Pollice, & Kaye, 1991). It is possible that fat avoidance is a correlate of eating pathology among women across the continuum of weight-related attitudes and behavior, and that diet composition may serve as an indicator of increased risk for an eating disorder.
Also, disturbances in eating patterns, such as those that occur with eating pathology, have been associated with ovulatory dysfunction (Krahn, Demitrack, et al.