Associations of Personality Trait with Body Mass Index in Midlife

Abstract

Midlife people tend to gain weight with age, contributing to poor health. Personality traits are often linked to health outcomes that have adverse effects. The ways of thinking, feeling, and acting summed up by broad personality traits may make people more likely to become obese. The results of previous studies on the relationship between body weight and personality traits got different results. We determined the association between personality traits and BMI in males and females using large cross-sectional data from IFLS5. Body mass index was calculated by weight and height (kg/m 2 ). BMI was categorized into two groups; normal (BMI 18.5-24.9 kg/m 2 ) and overweight/obese (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m 2 ). We excluded underweight participants. We use the Big Five Inventory 15 (BFI 15), a set of 15 adjectives representing all 5 of the big five personality groups, including extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. We adjusted the model with socioeconomic factors, health status, and behavioral factors. We used binary logistic regression to determine the association between personality traits and obesity. Data from 4,655 males and 5,154 females who participated in this study were included in the analysis. After being adjusted with potential confounders, Extraversion was significantly associated with obesity in males (AOR: 1.22; 95% CI 1.05-1.41) and females (AOR: 1.24; 95% CI 1.10-1.40). Conscientiousness was a protective factor for being overweight/obese in males (AOR: 0.83; 95% CI 0.72-0.95), and agreeableness was a protective factor for being overweight/obese in females (AOR: 0.88; 95% CI 0.78-0.99). The current results show how important it is to include phycological intervention in overweight/obesity therapy.