Abstract

This study is to explore eating and dieting style of college women. Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire(DEBQ) and other scales of dietary restraint were administered to 290 female college students in Seoul. The cluster analysis of DEBQ data showed three patterns of eating group; the Normal eating group, the Emotional/External eating group, and the Restrained eating group. The proportion of each group was 50%, 18.6%, and 31.4% respectively. The Normal eating group obtained under-average scores on the three subscales; Restrained Eating Scale(R); Emotional Eating Scale(EM), External Eating Scale(EX) of DEBQ. The Emotional/External eating group showed higher scores than other groups on EM and EX, but lower score on R. The Restrained eating group obtained higher score than other groups on R, but lower scores on EM, EX. It is found that 25.3% of the all respondents are undergoing current restrained dieting. The proportions of current dieting in each group were 4.9%, 25.5%, and 57.8% respectively. The Emotional/External eating group seemed to have a tendency to binge eating. The Restrained eating group seemed to have high motivation on weight loss. The correlation coefficient (r) between DEBQ-R and TFEQ-CR was .85; and that between DEBQ-R and RS was .64.