Eating style and symptoms of eating disorders: further explorations

Based on earlier efforts to document relationships between eating styles involving hunger, deprivation, and restraint and symptoms of eating disorders, three scales--Eating Style, Feeling Deprived, and Dieting Style--were created and administered to 259 University females, 118 males, and 50 nonstudent females. Of interest were psychometric properties of the scales, their relationships to each other and with symptoms, beliefs about weight control, and body weight. One year later, findings based on Eating Style were replicated and extended in smaller groups of the original University subjects. Appreciable relationships occurred almost uniformly between Eating Style (addressing hunger, deprivation, and restraint) and proposed correlates. Feeling Deprived (a measure of avowed deprivation) correlated consistently with beliefs about weight control and weight variables, but not symptoms. Measurement of Dieting Style was hampered by small ns.