New York, March 13 (Reuters): Teens who go on diets to drop some pounds are more likely to skip breakfast and binge eat — which may at least partly explain why they put on more weight over time than their peers who don’t diet, a new study shows.

The researchers set out to uncover the reasons why dieting by adolescents has been shown in previous studies to predict later weight gain.

The behaviours they identified, however, don’t entirely answer the question, Dr Dianne Neumark-Sztainer of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis said.

It’s possible, she explained, that people who are at greater risk of becoming overweight are also more likely to be dieters, although their initial weight was taken into account in the study’s analysis.