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

ABSTRACT

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.