Body Size Measurements Grouped Independently of Common Clinical Measures of Metabolic Health: An Exploratory Factor Analysis.

BACKGROUND

Obesity is commonly aggregated with indices of metabolic health. Proponents of body positivity approaches question whether body size is a determinant of health and well-being. Our objective was to conduct an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to determine if body size measurements factor load with or independent of metabolic health measures.

METHODS

The EFA was conducted on n= 249 adults using baseline data from four weight loss trials (Sample 1: n = 40; Sample 2: n = 52; Sample 3: n = 53; Sample 4: n = 104). An EFA of nine items (systolic blood pressure [SBP], diastolic blood pressure [DBP], hemoglobin A1c [HbA1c], HDL-cholesterol [HDL], LDL-cholesterol [LDL], total cholesterol [TC], body mass index [BMI], body fat percent BF%], and waist circumference [WC]) was conducted with oblique rotation.

RESULTS

Three factors were retained, which produced a model explaining 87.5% of the variance. Six items loaded strongly (>0.8) under three components and were selected for retention (Factor 1: LDL and TC; Factor 2: BMI and WC; Factor 3: SBP and DBP).

CONCLUSION

Body size measures loaded separately from measures of metabolic health and metabolic health were further split into lipid- and blood pressure-focused factors. These results support weight-neutral interventions to improve overall health and well-being.