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

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.

SUBMITTER: Daly M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6052963 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature