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Abstract
Background/objectives Weight perception, especially misperception, might affect health-related quality of life (HRQoL); however, related research is scarce and results remain equivocal. We examined the association between HRQoL and weight misperception by comparing obesity level as measured by body mass index (BMI) and weight perception in Korean adults.
Methods Study subjects were 43 883 adults aged 19 years or older from cycles IV (2007–2009), V (2010–2012) and VI (2013–2014) of the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Multiple regression analyses comprising both logit and tobit models were conducted to evaluate the independent effect of obesity level as measured by BMI, weight perception and weight misperception on HRQoL after adjusting for demographics, socioeconomic status and number of chronic diseases. We also performed multiple regressions to explore the association between weight misperception and HRQoL stratified by BMI status.
Results Obesity level as measured by BMI and weight perception were independently associated with low HRQoL in both separate and combined analyses. Weight misperception, including underestimation and overestimation, had a significantly negative impact on HRQoL. In subgroup analysis, subjects with BMI ranges from normal to overweight who misperceived their weight also had a high risk of low HRQoL. Overestimation of weight among obese subjects associated with low HRQoL, whereas underestimation of weight showed no significant association.
Conclusions Both obesity level as measured by BMI and perceiving weight as fat were significant risk factors for low HRQoL. Subjects who incorrectly perceived their weight relative to their BMI status were more likely to report impaired HRQoL, particularly subjects with BMI in the normal to overweight range. Based on these findings, we recommend political and clinical efforts to better inform individuals about healthy weight status and promote accurate weight perception.
- weight misperception
- obesity
- BMI
- HRQoL
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Footnotes
Contributors J-WK designed the study and supervised all procedure; SP analysed data and wrote the manuscript; and SL and JH revised the manuscript. All authors agreed to accept equal responsibility for the accuracy of the content of the paper.
Funding This research was supported by a grant of the Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (grant number: HC15C1322).
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Yes.
Ethics approval By the ethics committee of the KCDC (2008-04EXP-01-C, 2009-01CON-03-2C and 2010-02CON-21-C).
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement Data are available through the website of the KCDC. https://knhanes.cdc.go.kr.
Correction notice This paper has been amended since it was published Online First. Owing to a scripting error, some of the publisher names in the references were replaced with 'BMJ Publishing Group'. This only affected the full text version, not the PDF. We have since corrected these errors and the correct publishers have been inserted into the references.