This article describes a 10-year longitudinal study of eating attitudes and behaviors. A sample of 509 women and 206 men completed a detailed survey in 1982 while they were in college. The authors contacted participants 10 years later and administered a 2nd questionnaire to assess stability and change in eating behaviors that occurred during the transition to early adulthood. Women in the study had substantial declines in disordered eating behavior as well as increased body satisfaction. However, body dissatisfaction and desires to lose weight remained at relatively high levels. Men, who rarely dieted or had eating problems in college, were prone to weight gain following college, and many of them reported increased dieting or disordered eating. The authors conclude that disordered eating generally tends to decline during the transition to early adulthood. However, body dissatisfaction remains a problem for a substantial segment of the adult population.Although disordered and chaotic eating behaviors are common among young women, relatively little is known about the natural course or progression of these eating problems over time. A substantial number of young girls begin dieting before adolescence, and by the time they are in high school many of them have become chronic dieters (Heatherton & Polivy, 1992;Rosen & Gross, 1987). Moreover, many young women engage in a variety of disordered eating behaviors, such as binge eating or purging (Leon, Fulkerson, Peny & Cudeck, 1993). Likewise, eating disorders are especially prevalent during adolescence and early adulthood, with the most common onset reported to occur around age 18 (Thelen, Mann, Pruitt, & Smith, 1987). Thus,

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Maternal attachment, or the affiliation a mother feels towards her child, is an important predictor of maternal health and fetal/infant outcomes. Thus, it is important to identify psychological factors which may impact maternal attachment. This study examined associations among maternal attachment, depression, and body dissatisfaction (BD) throughout weeks of pregnancy. Pregnant women (n5196) were recruited to complete a self-report questionnaire about their experiences during pregnancy. There was no direct association between maternal attachment and BD. However, BD moderated the association between maternal attachment and weeks of pregnancy, and this association was not mediated by depression. High BD may contribute to poorer maternal health and poorer fetal outcomes through blunted growth of maternal attachment during pregnancy. Thus, high BD may be an important target for intervention in women during pregnancy. Future studies should examine longitudinal associations among these variables throughout the perinatal period.

The maintenance of normal body weight is disrupted in patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) for prolonged periods of time. Prior to the onset of AN, premorbid body mass index (BMI) spans the entire range from underweight to obese. After recovery, patients have reduced rates of overweight and obesity. As such, loci involved in body weight regulation may also be relevant for AN and vice versa. Our primary analysis comprised a cross-trait analysis of the 1000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with the lowest p-values in a genome-wide association meta-analysis (GWAMA) of AN (GCAN) for evidence of association in the largest published GWAMA for BMI (GIANT). Subsequently we performed sex-stratified analyses for these 1000 SNPs. Functional ex vivo studies on four genes ensued. Lastly, a look-up of GWAMA-derived BMI related loci was performed in the AN GWAMA. We detected significant associations (p-values < 5×10−5, Bonferroni corrected p < 0.05) for 9 SNP alleles at 3 independent loci. Interestingly, all AN susceptibility alleles were consistently associated with increased BMI. None of the genes (chr. 10: CTBP2, chr. 19: CCNE1, chr. 2: CARF and NBEAL1; the latter is a region with high linkage disequilibrium) nearest to these SNPs has previously been associated with AN or obesity. Sex-stratified analyses revealed that the strongest BMI signal originated predominantly from females (chr. 10 rs1561589; poverall: 2.47 × 10−06/pfemales: 3.45 × 10−07/pmales: 0.043). Functional ex vivo studies in mice revealed reduced hypothalamic expression of Ctbp2 and Nbeal1 after fasting. Hypothalamic expression of Ctbp2 was increased in diet induced obese (DIO) mice as compared to age-matched lean controls. We observed no evidence for associations for the look-up of BMI related loci in the AN GWAMA. A cross-trait analysis of AN and BMI loci revealed variants at three chromosomal loci with potential joint impact. The chromosome 10 locus is particularly promising given that the association with obesity was primarily driven by females. In addition, the detected altered hypothalamic expression patterns of Ctbp2 and Nbeal1 as a result of fasting and DIO implicate these genes in weight regulation.

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