Using psycho‐behavioral phenotyping for overweight and obesity: Confirmation of the 6 factor questionnaire

Abstract

Objective: Questionnaires that assess dietary habits, eating behaviors, and relevant psychosocial constructs are routinely used in obesity research and clinical practice.The 6 factor questionnaire (6FQ) was previously developed as an assessment tool for psycho-behavioral phenotyping. The primary purpose of this study was to confirm and validate the original findings in a large diverse adult population.Methods: A total of 5399 self-selected participants (mean age of 48 � 13 years and body mass index of 32 � 8 kg/m 2 ) completed the 6FQ online. The association between self-reported demographic data and 6FQ responses was assessed using linear regression models.Results: Mean factor score and odds ratio analyses consistently demonstrated a statistically significant relationship between factors and body weight even after adjusting for age, sex, and race/ethnicity. Conclusions:Although the study was correlational in design, the results demonstrate that the 6FQ, an instrument that represents multidimensional unhealthful lifestyle patterns associated with diet, physical activity, cognition, and selfperception worsen with increasing body weight. Psycho-behavioral phenotyping may be a useful approach when assessing and treating patients with obesity. K E Y W O R D Sobesity, psycho-behavioral phenotyping, questionnaire | INTRODUCTIONSince obesity is considered a multifactorial disease due to the interaction of various biological, psychosocial, and cognitive factors experienced throughout life, 1 there is a need to develop a tool that can identify the individuality of these differences for each person and facilitate targeted, evidence-based weight management strategies.Phenotyping patients based on these characteristics represents a unique method to provide more personalized care. Such a tool could be used by people with overweight or obesity as a guide for selecting a more tailored self-directed approach to weight loss and by clinicians who can enable the initiation of more effective and efficient weight management counseling.Multiple questionnaires have been developed and validated to assess psychological, behavioral, or dietary factors used primarily for research in individuals with obesity. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] further This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Exploring the Effect of the Dynamics of Behavioral Phenotypes on Health Outcomes in an mHealth Intervention for Childhood Obesity: Longitudinal Observational Study

“…Previous studies have mainly described the aspects of behavioral phenotypes based on the characteristics determined before the intervention [4][5][6]. However, the framework of behavioral phenotype can be further expanded to account for the dynamics of behavioral phenotype during the intervention [1], as there may be considerable heterogeneity in behavioral changes across people and time [7].…”