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A questionnaire was developed to measure main areas of nutritional knowledge. Fifty‐six patients with DSM‐III diagnoses of anorexia nervosa, bulimia, or atypical eating disorders and 144 normal controls completed the questionnaire. Item analyses of a condensed form of the original instrument indicated satisfactory reliability of total scale and subscales. Patients with anorexia nervosa or bulimia had significantly higher mean scores for nutritional knowledge than controls on subscales “Macronutrients and Roughage” and “Calories” but did not differ from them on the subscale “Micronutrients and Vitamins.“ Patients with bulimia and patients with anorexia nervosa had equivalent scores. About 15% of anorectic or bulimic patients scored below the 25th percentile of normal controls. Implications for dietary management in eating disorders are discussed.

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Influence of diet composition on mood during weight-reducing diets was studied in healthy young women of normal weight. A broad range of macronutrient intake was achieved by means of divergent dietary instructions for the composition of a 1,000 kcal per day diet adhered to for six weeks. Global mood during the last three weeks of the diet was significantly better in the "vegetarian" than in the "mixed" diet group. During this time a significant correlation was observed between relative carbohydrate intake and global mood (r = -0.74; p less than 0.01) and between the ratio of plasma tryptophan to other large neutral amino acids (a predictor of tryptophan flow into brain) and global mood (r = -0.52; p less than 0.05). Results suggest that group differences are related to differences in carbohydrate intake. It is hypothesized that impairment of central serotonergic function due to reduced tryptophan availability can prompt mood deterioration in situations of relatively low carbohydrate intake.

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