Volume 91, Issue 6, June (2004), pp. 997-1004 © The Author 2004
doi:10.1079/BJN20041115

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Eating behaviours, dietary profile and body composition according to dieting history in men and women of the Québec Family Study

Véronique Provencher¹, Vicky Drapeau², Angelo Tremblay², Jean-Pierre Després^1,3, Claude Bouchard⁴ and Simone Lemieux^1
1Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Laval University, Ste-Foy, Québec, Canada, G1K 7P4
²Division of Kinesiology, Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Laval University, Ste-Foy, Québec, Canada
³Québec Heart Institute, Laval Hospital Research Center, Laval University, Ste-Foy, Québec, Canada
⁴Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

 (Received 5 August 2003–Revised 19 December 2003–Accepted 3 February 2004)

The purpose of the present cross-sectional study was to compare eating behaviours (cognitive dietary restraint, disinhibition and susceptibility to hunger), dietary profile and physiological variables according to the practice of dieting: current dieting; history of dieting in the 10-year period that preceded the study; no dieting during the same period. Dieting history, anthropometric markers of adiposity, RMR, dietary profile (3 d food record) and eating behaviours (three-factor eating questionnaire) were determined in a sample of 244 men and 352 women. A greater proportion of women (31·8 %) than men (16·8 %) reported that they had been on a diet over the past 10 years (P=0·0001). In both genders, current and past dieters had a higher BMI (P<0·05) than non-dieters and current dieters had lower reported energy intakes than past dieters and non-dieters (only in women) (P<0·05). Current and past dieters also had higher scores for all eating behaviours and their subscales (P<0·05; except for susceptibility to hunger in men) compared with non-dieters (adjusted for age, reported energy intake, percentage of dietary fat, BMI and RMR). Moreover, for each dieting-history category, women had significantly higher scores for cognitive dietary restraint than men (P<0·05). In conclusion, the present study showed that current and past dieters had higher scores for cognitive dietary restraint and disinhibition compared with non-dieters. As disinhibition has previously been associated with a greater risk of subsequent weight gain, interventions aimed at preventing an increase in disinhibition may be promising for long-term weight maintenance.

Keywords:
Dieting history, Three-factor eating questionnaire, Dietary patterns, Gender differences

Abbreviations:
QFS, Québec Family Study, TFEQ, three-factor eating questionnaire