Adherence
Higher Body Mass Index (BMI) causally reduces subjective wellbeing, specifically by lowering satisfaction with health.
If you are carrying excess weight, it is likely affecting your mental wellbeing, specifically your satisfaction with your health. This is not just 'in your head' but a causal effect. Addressing your BMI through lifestyle changes may improve your subjective wellbeing and health satisfaction.
There was evidence of a causal effect of BMI on subjective wellbeing such that each 1 kg/m2 increase in BMI caused a 0.045 (95%CI 0.006 to 0.084, p=0.023) SD reduction in subjective wellbeing.
Why this rating
Uses Mendelian Randomization (MR) with large sample sizes and replication in UK Biobank, reducing confounding, though MR assumes linearity and no pleiotropy.
Source
Testing the causal effects between subjective wellbeing and physical health using Mendelian randomisation
Robyn E. Wootton et al. · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2018
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