IWQOL-Lite

Post is in reference to:
Development of a Brief Measure to Assess Quality of Life in Obesity. BY -Ronette L. Kolotkin, Ross D. Crosby, Karl D. Kosloski and G. Rhys WilliamsThere is a graph in this research article that I would like to share with you, but when I open the figure on line it is hard to read.  If you download it, as it is free, you can see the chart very well in a PDF.  I will tell you what I wanted to point out.



This article explains the revision of a survey that measures quality of life (QOL) as it is impacted by ones weight. The researchers took a long survey (74 questions) which categorizes answers into five scales and made it 31 items that still measure the same constructs reliably. 
The different areas are 1) physical function, 2) self-esteem, 3) sexual life, 4) public distress, 5) work and the total QOL score.  Quality of life is correlated to the Body Mass Index of the indivual.  A high score means that ones quality of life is diminished.  Both versions of the survey find that the higher the BMI the worse one's QOL is in each of the areas.  What I wanted to show you was figure 1.  This figure parses out all the scales.  In each graph the outcomes are broken into categories.  The comparison of scores is by BMI group AND gender.  The BMI groups are as follows; people with normal weight BMI <25 , people with BMI 25- 25.9, 30-34.5, 35-39.9 and 40+.  The higher the BMI the worse the scores.  Think of an axis, the vertical and horizontal - the horizontal has these categories and the bars going up indicate what the score was.  For most of these categories, the male and female bar is like the twin towers, hardly a difference.  I wanted you to see the three places where there were noticable gender differences.  They make sense.  Women have worse QOL scores then men with regard to their self esteem and sexual life and men have worse QOL scores with regard to work.  This is in reference to being overweight and obese.