PUBLIC LECTURE: 2006 Karrakatta Club lecture - The Psychology of Dieting: eating and weight problems in modern society

Abstract: We all know someone who has been on a diet. However, many of us are not aware of the damage that dieting can do to both physical and psychological health. Most people who go on weight loss diets regain all the weight they have lost (plus more) within a couple of years, and recurrent weight loss and weight gain can lead to long-term adverse physical consequences. In addition to the physical effects, dieting can be damaging to people's emotional health. For example, people who diet frequently are more likely to experience depression, and dieting can result in people becoming trapped in the vicious cycle of an eating disorder.

Over the last ten years, Dr Sue Byrne has accrued considerable experience in both research and clinical work in the fields of eating disorders and obesity. In this lecture, Dr Byrne will examine the psychology of dieting and how our obsession with dieting plays an important role in the development and maintenance of eating and weight disorders.

Biographical note: Dr Susan Byrne is a NHMRC Research Fellow at The University of Western Australia, and is a sessional specialist clinical psychologist with the CCI eating disorders programme. She is a major holder of grants investigating eating and weight disorders in children and adults from Healthways, the Raines Foundation and The University of Western Australia. She also holds an honorary position with Fiona Stanley's Telethon Institute for Child Health and Research. Dr Byrne was previously a Wellcome Trust Prize Student at Oxford University. Only one of these scholarships is awarded every 4 years. Whilst at Oxford University, she worked with Dr Christopher Fairburn. She is a member of national committees specializing in eating disorders such as the Australian Child and Adolescent Obesity Research Network and the Australian Eating Disorders National Research Group.

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