Awareness and acknowledgement of stress-related overeating and loss of control tendencies may facilitate subsequent weight loss efforts, provided that alternative stress-coping resources are available to aid adjustment to major life changes. College students with weight concerns, particularly those susceptible to "mood" eating and binge episodes, may have a restricted range of activities which provide positive reinforcement. Overweight students in a behavioral weight-control program reported less enjoyment of pleasant activities than normal-weight classroom control subjects. Restrictive dieting tendencies were positively correlated with frequency/enjoyability ratings of socially-related pleasures, and negatively correlated with frequency/enjoyability ratings of non-social pleasures. There is an ambiguous relationship between the amount and variety of pleasurable activities and subsequent body weight fluctuations. (Author)