Body-weight and psychological well-being in the UK general population
Body-weight and psychological well-being in the UK general population
Background: while the consequences of body weight for physical health are well explored, the evidence for psychological well-being is less straightforward. An instrumental variable approach is used to address the endogenous relationship between body weight and well-being in the UK general population.
Methods: data from the Health Survey for England (2003, 2004 and 2006) are used to fit linear and ordered probit instrument variable models for a sample of 13 862 individuals, with frequent white meat consumption instrumenting for body-weight. Non-linearities in the relationship, robustness to weak instruments and relaxation of strict exogeneity assumption are further examined.
Results: accounting for endogeneity and conditional on health a protective effect on well-being is observed. A unit increase in body mass index (BMI) improves General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) by 0.17 (95% CI: 0.02–0.31) points and reduces the probability of reporting very low GHQ by 2.5% (95% CI: 0.01–0.05). Empirical testing showed that the instrument performs well, with increased meat consumption adding 0.58 points (95% CI: 0.42–0.74) to ones’ BMI.
Conclusions: we present support for the jolly-fat hypothesis, however, caution is recommended in drawing inferences. Further research needs to resolve the mixed findings in the literature.
Archangelidi, Olga
0ac00a72-1e2a-4bc4-9fad-105801545611
Mentzakis, Emmanouil
c0922185-18c7-49c2-a659-8ee6d89b5d74
Archangelidi, Olga
0ac00a72-1e2a-4bc4-9fad-105801545611
Mentzakis, Emmanouil
c0922185-18c7-49c2-a659-8ee6d89b5d74
Archangelidi, Olga and Mentzakis, Emmanouil
(2017)
Body-weight and psychological well-being in the UK general population.
Journal of Public Health.
(doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdx054).
Abstract
Background: while the consequences of body weight for physical health are well explored, the evidence for psychological well-being is less straightforward. An instrumental variable approach is used to address the endogenous relationship between body weight and well-being in the UK general population.
Methods: data from the Health Survey for England (2003, 2004 and 2006) are used to fit linear and ordered probit instrument variable models for a sample of 13 862 individuals, with frequent white meat consumption instrumenting for body-weight. Non-linearities in the relationship, robustness to weak instruments and relaxation of strict exogeneity assumption are further examined.
Results: accounting for endogeneity and conditional on health a protective effect on well-being is observed. A unit increase in body mass index (BMI) improves General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) by 0.17 (95% CI: 0.02–0.31) points and reduces the probability of reporting very low GHQ by 2.5% (95% CI: 0.01–0.05). Empirical testing showed that the instrument performs well, with increased meat consumption adding 0.58 points (95% CI: 0.42–0.74) to ones’ BMI.
Conclusions: we present support for the jolly-fat hypothesis, however, caution is recommended in drawing inferences. Further research needs to resolve the mixed findings in the literature.
Text
SWB-OBESITY-JPH
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 2 May 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 15 May 2017
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 412887
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/412887
ISSN: 1741-3842
PURE UUID: c28ee8f1-bd2c-443b-bf86-0399c4371a84
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 07 Aug 2017 13:43
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 05:32
Export record
Altmetrics
Contributors
Author:
Olga Archangelidi
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics
