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A new, developmentally-sensitive measure of weight suppression
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

A new, developmentally-sensitive measure of weight suppression

Simar Singh, Danielle E Apple, Fengqing Zhang, Xin Niu and Michael R Lowe
Appetite, v 163, pp 105231-105231
01 Aug 2021
PMID: 33798620
url
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105231View
Accepted (AM)Maybe Open Access (Publisher Bronze) Open

Abstract

Adolescence Developmental history Bulimia nervosa Weight suppression Eating disorders
Weight suppression (WS) has demonstrated associations with numerous indices of eating behavior, psychopathology and eating disorder prognosis. However, because WS has traditionally been measured as a simple subtraction of current weight from highest past weight at adult height, this calculation is problematic for most individuals with disordered eating, who usually reach their highest past weight during adolescence. Here we propose a new method for computing WS to address this shortcoming, termed "developmental weight suppression" (DWS), and provide a web-based tool for ease of calculation. DWS is calculated as the difference between one's highest premorbid z-BMI (i.e., BMI z-score), and current z-BMI. z-BMIs were calculated using Cole's lambda-mu-sigma (LMS) approach, in accordance with LMS parameters publicly available from the Center for Disease Control (2010). A web-based user interface is available at https://niuxin.shinyapps.io/devws/, making its computation easier and its adoption by researchers simpler. By using z-BMIs in place of weights, DWS is more sensitive to the developmentally-relevant factors of age, height, and sex. Preliminary findings suggest that DWS is more strongly related to measures of eating pathology and biological reactions to weight loss than traditionally-computed WS, although more research is needed to test this hypothesis.

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20 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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#5 Gender Equality
#3 Good Health and Well-Being

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Behavioral Sciences
Nutrition & Dietetics
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