Factors influencing women’s choice of weight-loss diet

Abstract

We developed a typology of eight minimally overlapping weight-loss diet methods and used it to survey 151 women dieters on their choice of diet in the previous 12 months, their motivations to diet, and their eating disorder symptomatology. Canonical correlations revealed a potentially problematic “thin, quick, and easy” association of methods and motives, as well as a more healthful “thin, natural, life-style” association. Both featured the pursuit of thinness but not health. In fact, health was rated by dieters as the poorest motivator of dieting. The results highlight the importance to women dieters of short-term aesthetic concerns over long-term health.