The association of personality traits with childhood obesity: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND

A growing body of evidence has revealed an association between personality traits and obesity, but the findings regarding this association among children remain mixed. The aim of this review was to systematically summarize the literature regarding the associations between personality traits and childhood obesity.

METHODS

The study has been registered on PROSPERO (CRD42022306529). We searched a total of 8 databases up to July 1, 2023, to identify both published studies and grey literature written in English. Personality traits were classified into five dimensions based on the widely used Five-Factor Model. We conducted random effects meta-analyses to quantitatively synthesize the data. Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used to assess the quality of included studies.

RESULTS

A total of 7 studies were included. The pooled correlation coefficient of 2 studies was -0.09 (95 % CI: -0.17 to 0.00; I = 0 %) and the pooled standardized mean difference of 3 studies was -0.08 (95 % CI: -0.13 to -0.03; I = 66 %), indicating that conscientiousness was negatively associated with childhood obesity. No consistent patterns were found in the associations between the other 4 dimensions of personality traits and BMI/obesity in children.

LIMITATIONS

Our findings should be interpreted with caution due to the exclusion of non-English studies, the limited generalizability to Eastern population, and the scarcity body of evidence for present topic.

CONCLUSIONS

Low conscientiousness has been found to be consistently associated with childhood obesity. Causal associations of personality traits with the risk of childhood obesity remain to be clarified in future studies.