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

• Published in: Nutrients Vol. 16; no. 17; p. 2874
• Main Authors: Ellison, Katie M, El Zein, Aseel, Reynolds, Chelsi, Ehrlicher, Sarah E, Clina, Julianne G, Chui, Tsz-Kiu, Smith, Kimberly A, Hill, James O, Wyatt, Holly R, Sayer, R Drew
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 27.08.2024
• Subjects: Adult; Behavior; Blood Pressure; Body Mass Index; body positivity; Body Size; cardiometabolic disease; Cholesterol; Cholesterol, LDL - blood; Discriminant analysis; Exercise; exploratory factor analysis; Factor Analysis, Statistical; Female; Glucose; Glycated Hemoglobin - analysis; Glycated Hemoglobin - metabolism; High density lipoprotein; Humans; Jewelry; Laboratories; Lipoproteins; Male; Metabolism; Middle Aged; Obesity; Physiology; Waist Circumference; Weight control; Well being; United States > US; exploratory factor analysis; body positivity; cardiometabolic disease; obesity
• ISSN: 2072-6643; 2072-6643
• DOI: 10.3390/nu16172874

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. The EFA was conducted on = 249 adults using baseline data from four weight loss trials (Sample 1: = 40; Sample 2: = 52; Sample 3: = 53; Sample 4: = 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. 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). 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.