Self-Report Dieters: Who Are They?

Laura Sares-Jäske,Paul Knekt,Satu Männistö,Olavi Lindfors,Markku Heliövaara

doi:10.3390/nu11081789

Laura Sares-Jäske, Paul Knekt + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11081789

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Abstract

Dieting attempts have become popular worldwide. Dieting, however, seems to have both positive and negative health-related consequences. So far, only a few studies have focused on the determinants of dieting in detail. This study explores the association between self-report dieting attempts and intentional weight loss (IWL) during the previous year and several demographic, lifestyle, health, and psychological factors in a cross-sectional study design using data from the representative Finnish Health 2000 Survey. The sample comprised 2147 men and 2378 women, aged 30–69. Information for potential determinants was assembled via health examinations, interviews, and questionnaires. Approximately 24% of the men and 39% of the women reported dieting attempts and 10% of the men and 15% of the women reported IWL. Dieting attempts were associated with younger age, education, BMI, formerly smoking, more favourable values in lifestyle variables, and unfavorable values in serum HDL and triglycerides, a worse sense of coherence, concerns about one’s appearance, and concerns about one’s health. Among men, diabetics and those sleeping ≤6 h a night more frequently reported dieting attempts and those with osteoarthritis reported IWL. Moreover, the gradient between BMI and dieting attempts was significantly stronger in men than in women. Men seem to attempt dieting when they have actual health-related reasons, while such reasons are not so strongly associated with dieting in women. These findings can be used for determining subpopulations with obesity and real weight-loss needs and, alternatively, subpopulations with normal weight unnecessarily attempting dieting.

Highlights

Obesity acts as a major burden on public health by increasing the risk of several chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes (T2D), some cancers, osteoarthritis, and depression [1].dieting is used as a prevention strategy against the occurrence of such diseases and, successful and sustained weight loss benefits individuals with obesity [2,3]
This study was among the first to concentrate on a comprehensive scrutiny of the determinants of self-report dieting attempts and intentional weight loss (IWL)
The prevalence of IWL grew along with BMI in men but not in women. It seems that in women, dieting behaviour is not that dependent on a real need to lose weight, while it seems that men do not start dieting until they become affected by overweight or develop an obesity-related disease

Summary

Introduction

Obesity acts as a major burden on public health by increasing the risk of several chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes (T2D), some cancers, osteoarthritis, and depression [1].dieting is used as a prevention strategy against the occurrence of such diseases and, successful and sustained weight loss benefits individuals with obesity [2,3]. Dieting attempts may have other adverse consequences by inducing weight cycling, which has been suggested to be related to fluctuations in metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors (e.g., blood pressure, serum lipids, and plasma glucose) and the elevated risk of metabolic syndrome [8,9]. In addition to health-related reasons, individuals attempt dieting due to appearance, sport activities, and social or cultural pressure. More than 40% of the adult population worldwide have reported dieting attempts at some point in their life [12]. In spite of such popularity, studies on dieting attempts and intentional weight loss (IWL) at the population level have been relatively scarce

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