Influence of personality traits, gender, and socio-economic factors in obesity in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.

Abstract

Obesity is a chronic disorder associated with high mortality rates and high morbidity. The risk of obesity is associated with certain personality traits (PTs). Some studies have found correlations among some PTs and gender. Additionally, obesity implies higher costs in daily living. The aim of this paper is to overcome this problem in the literature and estimate the association between PTs and obesity by taking into account the economic situation of the individual. This study employs data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). We focus on waves 5 and 6 of the ELSA with a sample of 6562 individuals. The results suggests that the traits of agreeableness ( $\beta =0.071,\mathrm{se}=0.016,p<0.001$ ) and openness ( $\beta =0.028,\mathrm{se}:0.014,p<0.001$ ) are positively and significantly associated with obesity. On the other hand, consciousness has a negative and statistically significant effect on obesity $\left(\beta =0.072,\mathrm{se}:0.017,p<0.001\right)$ . Results are robust to the inclusion/exclusion of different regressors.