(P20-004-25) Obesity Self-Awareness in Corpus Christi, Texas

Objectives: Obesity has not only become a rising concern globally, but for the United States and it has been an increasing concern for Corpus Christi, Texas as the obesity prevalence nearly mirrors the United States. We aim to investigate adults with obesity self-awareness among residents of Corpus Christi, Texas.

Methods: The current study included 332 adult participants (18 and older) to investigate the differences in awareness of obesity for residents who completed all questions in the survey conducted between February 2020 to May 2021. Self-reported sociodemographic information was collected, including self-reported and measured weight and height all collected at the same time during the survey. Self-reported perceived weight category was also gathered. From this, BMI was calculated, and weight categories were classified as normal (≤18.5 – 24.9), overweight (25.0 – 29.9), and obese (≥30.0). Analysis was conducted using Bland-Altman plots and by calculating Cohen’s kappa statistic.

Results: The Bland-Altman plots indicated agreement, and the values fell within ±2 standard deviations of the mean difference. Almost perfect strength of agreement was observed for measured and reported weight categories (κ = 0.839, 95% CI: [0.811 – 0.868]) using a weighted Cohen’s kappa. This indicates that the data is quite similar therefore measured and reported categories are highly consistent and indicative of a small degree of misclassification. The observation for perceived and reported weight categories (κ = 0.138, 95% CI: [0.095 – 0.181) had slight strength of agreement indicating the data had a weak consistency and a significant amount of discrepancy between the two. This is indicative of a large degree of misclassification and thus a significant gap in awareness.

Conclusions: The findings support use of reported weight and height data to compute an individual’s weight category. There is also evidence of a gap in awareness of one’s weight category particularly in the adult population of Corpus Christi, Texas which can have implications for prevention and intervention to promote health and wellness in the region.

Funding Sources: USDA/NIFA and NSF