A 10-YEAR LONGITUDINAL-STUDY OF BODY-WEIGHT, DIETING, AND EATING DISORDER SYMPTOMS

This article describes a 10-year longitudinal study of earing attitude s and behaviors. A sample of 509 women and 206 men completed a detaile d survey in 1982 while they were in college. The authors contacted par ticipants 10 years later and administered a 2nd questionnaire to asses s stability and change in eating behaviors that occurred during the tr ansition to early adulthood. Women in the study had substantial declin es in disordered eating behavior as well as increased body satisfactio n. However, body dissatisfaction and desires to lose weight remained a t relatively high levels. Men, who rarely dieted or had eating problem s in college, were prone to weight gain following college, and many of them reported increased dieting or disordered eating. The authors con clude that disordered eating generally tends to decline during the tra nsition to early adulthood. However, body dissatisfaction remains a pr oblem for a substantial segment of the adult population.