Resumen de Ideal weight vs. Bmi as predictors of self reported health in young adults
Manuel Alcaraz Ibáñez, Elena Martínez Rosales, Alba Hernández Martínez, Enrique G. Artero
Introduction: Self-reported health has proven to be a valid predictor of increased use of healthservices, future morbidity and life expectancy. The negative relationship between body mass index(BMI) and self-reported health is well documented. However, the relationship between subjectiveweight discrepancy (i.e., perceiving him or herself below or above the considered ideal weight) andself-reported health is still insufficiently known. This limitation may be relevant according to (a) thebroadly subjective character of self-reported health, and (b) previous evidence suggesting that bothoverweight/obese and underweighted men may experience lower self-reported health. This study wasaimed at comparing BMI and weight gain/loss to reach ideal weight as cross-sectional predictors ofself-reported health in young adults of both sexes.Methods: A total of 718 Spanish undergraduates (49% females, 96% white) aged between 18 and 28(Mage = 20.73, SDage = 2.31) filled in a self-reported questionnaire comprising the variables of interest.Weight loss to reach ideal weight (WLIW) was estimated by subtracting subjective ideal-BMI fromself-reported actual-BMI. Likewise, weight gain to reach ideal weight (WGIW) was estimated by subtractingself-reported actual-BMI from subjective chosen ideal-BMI. When calculating both WLIGand WGIW, negative values were truncated to zero. Two linear regression analyses aimed to predictself-reported health were independently conducted for women and men. In the first model (M1), age,income-level satisfaction, exercise habits and BMI were introduced as independent variables. In thesecond model (M2), both WGIW and WLIW were introduced instead of BMI.Results: M1 and M2 respectively explained a 16.9% and 17.2% of self-reported health in the case ofwomen and a 15.3% and 17.7% in the case of men. WLIW emerged as a significant cross-sectionalpredictor of self-reported global health both in men (α = -.209, p < .001) and women (α = -.173,p = .001). Conversely, WGIW emerged as significant cross-sectional predictor in men (α = -.140,p = .009) but not in women (α = -.005, p = .920).Conclusions: WLIW and WGIW may be better cross-sectional predictors of self-reported healththan BMI in young men
