Subtyping undergraduate women along dietary restraint and negative affect

Cluster-analytic studies of clinical populations of eating disordered women who binge eat have yielded two subtypes--pure dietary restraint and mixed dietary restraint-negative affect--consistent with etiologic and maintenance models of binge eating. This study aimed to replicate this subtyping scheme in university women. The scores of 623 undergrad females on the TFEQ-restraint and BDI scales were submitted to a cluster analysis and revealed three subtypes, "healthy" (47.4%), restrained (36.3%) and mixed (16.3%). In addition, comparisons between subtypes on bulimic behaviors showed that the mixed and restrained subtypes were characterized by greater likelihood than the healthy group to engage in fasting, purging and exercise to control weight, as well as in disinhibition of eating. The mixed subtype revealed higher scores than the restrained subtype on eating disinhibition and purging, and the restrained group was more likely than the mixed subtype to exercise to control weight. These findings provide further support for the reliability and validity of this subtyping scheme, in which the confluence of even mild levels of negative affect and dietary restraint differentiated a more "disturbed" group of undergraduate females. Findings also put into question the dietary restraint theory of eating pathology and suggest the need to control negative affect when studying eating behavior.