Does Knowing Hurt? Perceiving Oneself as Overweight Predicts Future Physical Health and Well-Being



Daly, M, Robinson, EL ORCID: 0000-0003-3586-5533 and Sutin, AR
(2017) Does Knowing Hurt? Perceiving Oneself as Overweight Predicts Future Physical Health and Well-Being. Psychological Science, 28 (7). pp. 872-881.

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Abstract

Identifying oneself as being overweight may be associated with adverse health outcomes, yet prospective tests of this possibility are lacking. Over 7 years, we examined associations between perceptions of being overweight and subsequent health in a sample of 3,582 U.S. adults. Perceiving oneself as being overweight predicted longitudinal declines in subjective health (d = −0.22, p < .001), increases in depressive symptoms (d = 0.09, p < .05), and raised levels of physiological dysregulation (d = 0.24, p < .001), as gauged by clinical indicators of cardiovascular, inflammatory, and metabolic functioning. These associations remained after controlling for a range of potential confounders and were observed irrespective of whether perceptions of being overweight were accurate or inaccurate. This research highlights the possibility that identifying oneself as overweight may act independently of body mass index to contribute to unhealthy profiles of physiological functioning and impaired health over time. These findings underscore the importance of evaluating whether weight-feedback interventions may have unforeseen adverse consequences.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: obesity, body image, weight stigma, health, well-being, open data, open materials
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 07 Feb 2017 16:24
Last Modified: 19 Jan 2023 07:19
DOI: 10.1177/0956797617696311
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3005603