Sociable, Selfish People Tend to Get Fat: Japanese Survey

[saikira]

Obesity tends to be more common among the sociable or self-centered, while worriers tend to be slim, a Japanese survey has found.

The poll, which covered about 30,000 men and women aged 40 to 64 from Miyagi Prefecture, is of an unprecedented scale and the results were carried in an international medical journal.

In the survey, respondents were asked 48 questions such as whether they like talking or tend to worry about what others think and were then divided into four groups according to their degree in each of the following tendencies - outgoing, neurotic, nonconformist and sociable.

As a result, Tohoku University professor Ichiro Tsuji and other researchers found that the more you are outgoing, the more you tend to be obese, with their body-mass index (BMI) generally topping the obesity line of 25.



The group of most outgoing people had 1.73 times more fat men and 1.53 times more fat women than those in the group of the most introverted people, the survey concluded.

The survey also found that the more you are a nonconformist, the more you tend to become fat.

Meanwhile, the more you are neurotic, the skinnier you are, with their BMI generally measuring under the slimness line of 18.5.

The group of most neurotic people had more than twice as many skinny people than those in the group of the least neurotic people.

Masako Kakizaki, a graduate student at Tohoku University who was part of the team that conducted the survey, said the causal relationship between personalities and obesity is still not clear, but that some of the nerve transmitter substance that is linked to the forming of personalities could affect appetite.

"The results of the survey could lead to the development of more effective health education programs," said Kakizaki.

Source: Mainichi
Pics from Flashlightfish, CharleyMarley

[53624]

I think the reason why most of the sociable/ outgoing people tend to be fatter, they eat/party more (the best way to have bonding with friends lolz)

[lopka]

Hmm, so is it a good thing to be neurotic or something?

That's funny, fat people stereotype is that they're sociable and nice because they're fat, not the other way around.
And people who become fat tend to become introverted as well...

[chiongster]

I think the reason why most of the sociable/ outgoing people tend to be fatter, they eat/party more (the best way to have bonding with friends lolz)

I agree this too...
Sociable get fatter ... agree
Selfish get fatter ... undecided

I thought there is one idiom about selfish and getting fatter in cantonese....hmm.

[andyloh007]

well hell, japan has tonsa good food. it aint no surprise that there are tons of tubbies rolling around

[Arcoustic]

well, but they dont use cars to go places,
so that might be SOME exercise...
compared to americans who just drive their cars to any place they want to go and walk like 10 yards a day.

[natsugi]

I believe that the sociable people don't really care about there weight, considering how they have already established a link to society. They are more opted to eat more without worrying what other peoples think because they already fit in.

[satsumiya]

The results with selfish people aren't very surprising at all... But, it could also be related to how easy-going or conscientious you are...? Because there are sociable people who are conscientious about health and weight, too. But it could be that in general, more sociable people are lax about those concerns and are more about interaction and personality, while worriers tend to want most aspects of their lives to be more "together" and regulated, and worry about image matters more...

Interesting to think about.

[ten_penthouse]

The survey also found that the more you are a nonconformist, the more you tend to become fat.

Well, duh. Conformity for the sake of conformity is incredibly repressive - and any way to subvert a social system you can (in this case, forcing cognitive dissonance onto people via visual cues of what they consider a body type that's supposed to be indicative of negative traits), one will do. It's that or fall apart entirely.

It's also incredibly problematic to link obesity to personality, as well as considering BMI as anything but arbitrary.

[nicholaskun]

interesting article we have over here. Maybe the fat people are generally more sociable as they tend to speak and communicate more than they do so in action, resulting in better social skills than the average man.

As for the selfish part, perhaps it's due to the extra care they have to give to their own bodies that resulted in the self-centred behaviour.

[xieyali]

If this is true I must be a very selfish, self-concerning person, haha. I wonder how this will affect the whole 'metabo' craze that's got everyone so concerned now.

[ChanF07]

Its well documented that anxiety can trigger behavioural change, such as loss of appetite and increased metabolism, explain weight loss and less obese. Some rather sketchy studies tentatively linked susceptibility to anxiety to personality, with introverted personalities more likely to fall prey to anxiety...
Until more evidence comes out this is just a hypothesis

[billyramiel]

Why a selfish people will get fatter....
I am not a selfish people but I am very fat....

[Divination]

I can understand why worrisome people are skinny since they're probably stressed out most of the time, but it seems like selfish people can go either way.

[Yilei]

O_o I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this thing seeming to imply that neurosis is a great cure for being fat. Neurotic people are probably more skinny because they worry too much to utter paranoia that they don't even want to put food in their mouth because they're afraid of what's in it.

I dunno, I'm kind of sociable and plump, but I worry a good amount too. For me, sometimes I give into temptation of food more when I worry too just because food is comforting because it's so tasty. =D I'm not really fat fat either although I think I could lose at least 40 pounds to at least get back to where I was in high school.