Wimmelmann CL, et al. - Cross-sectional associations of personality with BMI and obesity were examined among men and women in a large late midlife community sample. Personality was observed to have a significant association with BMI and to a lesser extent with obesity. Men and women differed regarding these associations. In general, the personality-BMI/obesity associations in this study became stronger in models adjusting for all five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness).

Methods

• Researchers included 5,286 Danish individuals aged 49-63 years from the Copenhagen Ageing and Midlife Biobank (CAMB) with complete information on measured BMI, personality assessed by the NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO FFI), and sociodemographic factors including sex, age and educational length.
• To investigate associations between personality and BMI as well as obesity, they used analysis of variance and logistic regression models.  
• They separately analyzed personality traits, and combined them in the same model.

Results

• Except for neuroticism, all personality traits were noted to have significant association with BMI, with extraversion (p value ranged from <0.001 to 0.012) and agreeableness (p value ranged from 0.001 to 0.002) being the most consistent predictors of BMI among men and women, respectively.
• In addition, after adjusting for duration of education, extraversion among men (high scores) (p=0.016) and agreeableness among women (low scores) (p=0.026) were the only personality traits significantly associated with obesity.