Since 1980, the global prevalence of obesity has more than doubled. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) more than one in ten of the world’s adult population are now obese. The prevalence of obesity is high both in the developed and developing countries, leading to suggestions of an “obesity pandemic” or “globesity”. In Scotland alone, 28% of adults are now obese, and a further 36% are overweight. Historically, the main focus of healthcare has been the avoidance of preventable mortality. As life-expectancy has increased, attention has focused on the need to improve health, as well as longevity. The WHO definition of health encompasses mental and social, as well as physical, well-being. It is widely accepted that obesity causes, or aggravates, a number of medical conditions, and is also associated with reduced life-expectancy. However, the research on adiposity and subjective well-being is still in its infancy and previous studies suggest that the relationship is complex. This thesis starts by demonstrating the importance of subjective well-being in terms of its association with adverse outcomes: all-cause death, coronary heart disease (CHD), cancer incidence, and psychiatric hospitalisations. This is followed by six complementary studies that explore the relationship between adiposity and subjective well-being. Subjective well-being is explored using various approaches including self-reported health (SRH), health-related quality of life (overall, physical and mental/psychosocial), mental health and mood disorder, and adiposity is assessed using four measures: body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and body fat percentage (BF%) across the whole range of adiposity (from underweight to class III obese).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:622048 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Ul Haq, Zia |
| Publisher | University of Glasgow |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5519/ |
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