Do you consider your weight healthy? The association between perceived weight throughout early life and self-rated health in adulthood

Citation

Gutin, Iliya (2018). Do you consider your weight healthy? The association between perceived weight throughout early life and self-rated health in adulthood. Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America. Denver, CO.

Abstract

Obesity and weight gain pose a growing threat to the health and wellbeing of ever-younger US adults. Nevertheless, young adult views of body weight as a salient component of overall health are poorly understood, especially prior to the onset of weight-related morbidities. Addressing this issue, I use Add Health and group-based trajectory models to examine how perceptions of weight throughout early life are associated with self-rated health (SRH) in adulthood, above and beyond objective weight and other confounders. Results show that adults who perceived themselves as “overweight” – in adolescence, young adulthood, or always – are twice as likely to report fair/poor SRH as individuals consistently perceiving their weight as “about right”. These findings provide insight into the nuances of how adults define health as a function of weight. Moreover, they emphasize the importance of subjectivity in evaluating health and how perceptions of weight become internalized throughout the life course.

URL

https://paa.confex.com/paa/2018/webprogrampreliminary/Paper19093.html

Keyword(s)

obesity perceived weight self-rated health

Reference Type

Conference proceeding

Book Title

Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America

Series Title

Children and youth

Author(s)

Gutin, Iliya

Year Published

2018

City of Publication

Denver, CO

Reference ID

9287