Dieting is a global emerging trend in recent years as more people strive to adhere to food restriction plans for weight management in obese people and to achieve desired slim body. This strategy may have unforeseen repercussions in females that may affect reproductive potential. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the impact of dietary stress on reproductive hormone levels, histoarchitecture of the ovary, autophagy and apoptosis markers in the rat ovary. Data suggest that dietary stress caused due to food deprivation decreased body weight and relative ovary weight, luteinising hormone (LH), follicular stimulating hormone (FSH) and estradiol-17β levels. The dietary stress reduced number of primary follicles, altered the histoarchitecture of the ovary, increased number of fragmented and irregular shape oocytes. Dietary stress induced autophagy signaling by inhibiting mTOR and increasing Lamp-1, LC-3 and Beclin-1 in the ovarian follicles. In addition, dietary stress induced proapoptotic signaling pathway by decreasing Bcl-2 and increasing Bax as well as Cytochrome-c expressions in the ovary. Taken together, these finding suggest that dietary stress caused due to food deprivation reduced reproductive hormones level, induced autophagy and apoptotic signaling pathways that affected histoarchitecture of the ovary, ovarian function, oocyte quality and thereby reproductive potential.