Weight gain tied to changes in personality
Washington: Adding a few kilos can make
people more thoughtful about their actions but they are also more likely to
give in to temptations, a new study has found.
To understand how fluctuations in body
weight might relate to personality changes, psychological scientist Angelina
Sutin of the Florida State University College of Medicine and colleagues at the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) examined data from two large-scale
longitudinal studies of Baltimore residents.
"We know a great deal about how
personality traits contribute to weight gain," said Sutin.
"What we don`t know is whether
significant changes in weight are associated with changes in our core
personality traits. Weight can be such an emotional issue; we thought that
weight gain may lead to long-term changes in psychological functioning,"
Sutin said.
The studies, NIH`s Baltimore Longitudinal
Study of Aging (BLSA) and the Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA)
study, included more than 1,900 people in total, of all ages and socioeconomic
levels.
Data about participants` personality traits
and their body weight were collected at two time points separated by nearly a
decade.
In one study, a clinician measured
participants` weight at the two time points; in the other study, the
participants reported their weight at baseline and had it measured by a
clinician at follow-up.
Sutin and colleagues found that
participants who had at least a 10 per cent increase in body weight showed an
increase in impulsiveness - with a greater tendency to give in to temptations -
compared to those whose weight was stable.
The data didn`t reveal whether increased impulsiveness
was a cause or an effect of gaining weight, but they do suggest an intimate
relationship between a person`s physiology and his or her psychology.
People who gained weight also reported an
increase in deliberation, with a greater tendency to think through their
decisions. Deliberation tends to increase for everyone in adulthood, but the
increase was almost double for participants who gained weight compared to those
whose weight stayed the same.
"If mind and body are intertwined,
then if one changes the other should change too. That`s what our findings
suggest," Sutin said.
Sutin and colleagues speculated that this
increase in deliberation could be the result of negative feedback from family
or friends - people are likely to think twice about grabbing a second slice of
cake if they feel that everyone is watching them take it.
These findings suggest that even though
people who gain weight are more conscious of their decision-making, they may
still have difficulty resisting temptations.
The study was published in Psychological
Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
