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A and Neuroticism N, each composed of six facets or primary traits itself. Weight loss if denominated as the loss of excess weight can be assimilated into health behaviors firmly established automatic behaviors that enhance and maintain one's health especially in obese individuals. Although it has been determined that personality traits affect our everyday lives there has yet to be sufficient data on their impact on our weight and the different ways in which one may approach it.
This paper examines the available literature on the relationship between personality factors in the BFI and weight loss success in an attempt to better understand this causality. Literature Review. The present-day pursuit of thinness is a growing social problem and a major public health threat that has led to an epidemic of eating disorders in part due to personality factors. In a study on subtypes of bariatric patients and their effect on weight loss. Peterhänsel Linde Wagner Dietrich Kersting 2017 found two personality subtypes emotionally dysregulated, under-controlled EDU and resilient high functioning RHF. Although neither of the two seemed to affect weight loss in a direct or significant manner.
As such it appears that C does in fact promote healthy behaviors in individuals or at least protect them from the dysfunctional eating behaviors that cause weight gain. Indeed Chapman et al 2009 found that in men greater obesity prevalence was linked with higher A and N further suggesting that N is a predisposing factor for weight gain. McCann 2011 in his study of American state differences in obesity prevalence regarding personality traits found lower O higher A and higher N to be tied with higher state obesity prevalence.
In accordance with previous findings lower, O may lead to a lower motivation to be fit and healthy higher A to increased reactivity to social threats or stressors and higher N to increasingly negative effect and obesity-promoting habits Chapman et al 2009. Yet can it be said that because higher C is generally associated with normal or lower BMIs and higher N with higher ones C necessarily stimulates weight loss and N weight gain. The influence of any given personality trait on one's weight relies not only on one's body type but also on one's coping mechanisms. Swami Taylor Carvalho 2011 in their study found Emotional Stability ES the opposite of N to be negatively associated with body dissatisfaction. Similarly, Swami Tran Brooks, Kanaan Luesse, Nader Pietschnig, Stieger Voracek 2013 found a positive correlation between N and actual-ideal weight discrepancy and a negative one between N and body appreciation. Further increased body appreciation was tied with increased C E and A levels and a decreased N level Swami et al 2013.
