Women With Apple-Shaped Body At Risk for Eating Disorder Researchers say more fat at center of body is a predictor

Each one-point increase in percentage of abdominal fat was associated with a 53% increase in risk of developing loss-of-control when eating, even though percentage of total body fat didn't predict the eating disorder, according to Laura Berner, PhD, at Drexel University in Philadelphia, and colleagues. With a 2 year follow-up, Berner and colleagues also found that more trunk fat was also associated with body image dissatisfaction in nearly 300 college-aged women at risk of weight gain. They published their findings in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. "Our results suggest that centralized fat deposition increased disordered eating risk above and beyond other known risk factors," said Berner in a press release. "The specificity of our findings to centralized fat deposition was also surprising." Previous research has shown that loss-of-control eating predicts weight gain and the development of binge-eating episodes, said the researchers. And a separate study, published last week, found that the waist-to-hip ratio is a far better predictor of relevant outcomes like mortality than is body mass index (BMI). Berner and colleagues found that their results were independent of BMI and of depressive episodes. http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/DietNutrition/54751?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2015-11-18&eun=g721819d0r