Dieting at young age affects women's health later in life, study says
1. Dieting at young age affects women's health later in life,
study says
The cultural pressure to stay thin affects many women of all ages; some start watching their weight
in adolescence or even younger. But the earlier in life a woman starts dieting, the worse long-term
consequences it can have for her health, a new study suggests.
In the study, presented Tuesday at the meeting of the
Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior in Seattle,
researchers asked 1,340 college-aged women when they
first started dieting, and then followed them for 10 years to
examine their dieting habits and health later in life. They found that an early age of first dieting was
related to extreme weight-control behaviors, greater alcohol consumption and misuse, and a greater
chance of being overweight or obese at the 10-year follow-up.
The age of the first diet among women in the study ranged from as young as as 3 years old to 26
years old, study author Pamela Keel, a professor in the Department of Psychology at Florida State
University, told CBS News.
"Younger age of dieting predicts greater problems 10 years out from college," Keel said.
It is not completely clear why dieting at an early age may have such an effect on health later in life.
One possible reason, Keel said, is that "there is already something different" about women who start
dieting at an early age, in terms of their social environment or genetic makeup. Those factors can
stay with them throughout life, thus increasing the risk of resorting to extreme dieting and other
unhealthy behaviors. In fact, eating disorders are often driven by social, psychological and biological
factors, Keel said.