Advertisement
AJPH
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

AJPH First Look, published online ahead of print Jan 30, 2008
This Article
Right arrow Figures Only
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Supplemental Data
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
AJPH.2007.114769v1
98/3/501    most recent
Right arrow Submit a response
Right arrow purchase articles
Right arrow View Shopping Cart
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when eLetters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Right arrow Get other permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Muennig, P.
Right arrow Articles by Lubetkin, E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Muennig, P.
Right arrow Articles by Lubetkin, E.
Related Collections
Right arrow Obesity, Overweight, Underweight
Right arrow Social Science
Right arrow African Americans/Blacks
Right arrow Hispanics/Latinos
Right arrow Other Race/Ethnicity
Right arrow Socioeconomic Factors
March 2008, Vol 98, No. 3 | American Journal of Public Health 501-506
© 2008 American Public Health Association
DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2007.114769

RESEARCH AND PRACTICE

I Think Therefore I Am: Perceived Ideal Weight as a Determinant of Health

Peter Muennig, MD, MPH, Haomiao Jia, PhD, Rufina Lee, PhD and Erica Lubetkin, MD, MPH

Peter Muennig is with the Department of Health Policy and Management, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY. Haomiao Jia is with the Columbia University School of Nursing, New York. Rufina Lee is a Psychiatric Epidemiology Training Fellow at Columbia University, New York. Erica Lubetkin is with the Department of Community Health and Social Medicine, City University of New York Medical School, New York.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Peter Muennig, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 600 W 168th St, Sixth Floor, New York, NY 10032 (e-mail: pm124{at}columbia.edu).

Objectives. We examined whether stress related to negative body image perception and the desire to lose weight explained some of the body mass index–health gradient.

Methods. We used 2003 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data to examine the impact of desired body weight, independent of actual body mass index, on the amount of physically and mentally unhealthy days by race, ethnicity, and gender.

Results. The difference between actual and desired body weight was a stronger predictor than was body mass index (BMI) of mental and physical health. When we controlled for BMI and age, men who wished to lose 1%, 10%, and 20% of their body weight respectively suffered a net increase of 0.1, 0.9, and 2.7 unhealthy days per month relative to those who were happy with their weight. For women, the corresponding numbers were 0.1, 1.6, and 4.3 unhealthy days per month. The desire to lose weight was more predictive of unhealthy days among women than among men and among Whites than among Blacks or Hispanics.

Conclusions. Our results raise the possibility that some of the health effects of the obesity epidemic are related to the way we see our bodies.






HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright © 2008 by the American Public Health Association