Health-Promoting Behavior and Quality of Life among Community-Dwelling, Middle-Aged Women: A Comparative Study between Overweight and Normal-Weight Groups

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Strategically improving health-related quality of life (HRQOL) should be discussed among overweight middle-aged women who are vulnerable to low HRQOL. We examined firstly if overweight middle-aged women would have significantly lower levels of HRQOL and health-promoting behaviors than normal-weight middle-aged women, and to examine secondly if health-promoting behaviors would be significantly associated with generic and obesity-specific HRQOLs within the overweight middle-aged women. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional, comparative study. Participants were 119 women aged 30–49 years who were recruited from a community in Seoul, South Korea; 63 women for the overweight group who were recruited from a baseline sample of the Community-Based Heart and Weight Management Trial, while 56 for the normal-weight group who were recruited separetely. Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP II), World Health Organization Quality of Life-brief version (WHOQOL-BREF) of a generic HRQOL measure, and Impact of Weight on Quality of Life-Lite (IWQOL-Lite) of an obesity-specific HRQOL measure were used. RESULTS: Compared to the normal-weight group, the overweight group showed significantly lower scores of total WHOQOL-BREF as well as some HPLP II subscales including stress management (P=0.029). Among the HPLP II subscales, stress management was significantly and positively associated with total WHOQOL-BREF (β=1.58, P=0.003) and self-esteem IWQOL-Lite (β=11.58, P=0.034) among the overweight group. CONCLUSIONS: Among middle-aged overweight women, low levels of health-promoting behavior for stress management were shown, which should be strategically increased for improving their generic and obesity-specific HRQOLs.