To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to examine whether personality is associated with fluctuations in weight over time. Interestingly, our pattern of associations fits nicely with the characteristics of these traits. As discussed above, both Neuroticism and (low) Conscientiousness are associated with unhealthy eating patterns (Provencher et al., 2008; Tasca et al., 2009). Individuals who have difficulty managing their weight often attempt to reduce their weight through diet and other lifestyle changes. Despite weight loss accomplishments, however, relapses are common. Our data suggest that those scoring high on Neuroticism and low on Conscientiousness are more likely to go through such cycles of weight gain and loss. At the more specific facet level, both impulsivity and depression were associated with greater weight fluctuations. Impulsive individuals often alternate between restricting their food intake and periods of uninhibited eating (Jansen et al., 2009) and changes in appetite are one of the core characteristics of depression (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Thus, it is not surprising that those who give in to temptation and those with a predisposition to experience depression
