Being Overweight, Smoking Most Strongly Related to Poor Personal Health Ratings

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- Doctors have preached for many years that smoking and being overweight negatively affect health, while engaging in exercise benefits it. A recent Gallup poll confirms these relationships based on a comparison of Americans' evaluations of their own health and their self-reports of various lifestyle and demographic factors. The two most negative factors affecting how people evaluate their own health -- of those included in the survey -- are whether they see themselves as overweight and whether they smoke, according to the poll. Age also has an important influence, as the older people get, the less likely they are to give their own health a positive rating. On the flip side, the more people exercise, the higher they rate their health; and people who drink alcohol weekly or more give higher ratings than do people who rarely or never drink.

The poll, conducted Nov. 8-11, 2001, found that 29% of Americans rate their personal health as excellent, 49% as good, and 22% as fair or poor. The evaluations varied considerably among different subgroups of people, although there are no significant differences by gender.

In addition to their health rating, respondents were asked to describe how much they exercise vigorously, whether they felt they were overweight, how frequently they drink alcohol, and whether they smoke cigarettes.

Age

Not surprisingly, older people are less likely to give positive health ratings than are younger people. The biggest decline occurs between the youngest age group and the next oldest group, a drop of 14 percentage points in the number who say their health is "excellent" -- from 44% to 30%. As people get older, the percentage saying "excellent" continues to decline, with only 14% of people 65 and older giving that rating to their health.

Smoking

The poll shows a major difference in the health ratings of smokers and non-smokers, with only 19% of smokers rating their health as excellent, compared with 32% of non-smokers. About the same number of each group rate their health as good, but almost twice as many smokers (34%) give their health a fair or poor rating as do non-smokers (18%).

 

PERSONAL HEALTH RATING COMPARED BY DEMOGRAPHICS
	"How would you describe your own physical health at this time?"
	Excellent %	Good %	Fair/Poor %
Overall	29	49	22
Age
18-29	44	40	16
30-49	30	52	18
50-64	25	46	29
65+	14	57	29
Smoker
No	32	50	18
Yes	19	47	34
Drinker (How often?)
Weekly or more	37	49	14
Occasionally	31	49	20
Never	19	49	32
Overweight?
No	38	43	19
Yes	18	57	25
Exercise Scale
High	42	46	12
Medium	28	55	17
Low	24	51	25
Sedentary	19	46	35

Drinking

The poll shows that people who do not drink alcohol at all give themselves significantly lower health ratings than do those who drink at least once a week. While some recent announcements in the news have suggested that moderate drinking of alcohol, especially red wine, can actually improve one's health, it is also likely that many people in this survey refrain from consuming alcohol because they already have bad health. Drinking, in fact, is lowest among older people, who also report the lowest health ratings.

Being Overweight

Overall, close to half of all Americans (44%) consider themselves overweight. Among this group of people, only 18% consider their health to be excellent, while 25% say it is just fair or poor. Among those who say they are not overweight, the health ratings are considerably better: 38% say it is excellent, and just 19% say it is fair or poor.

Exercise

Based on their responses to the questions on exercise, Gallup calculated an exercise scale that divides people into four categories -- high, medium, low and sedentary. Not surprisingly, the lower a person is on the exercise scale, the lower the personal health rating. Among the essentially non-exercise group, labeled as "sedentary," only 19% say their health is excellent, and 35% say it is only fair or poor. By contrast, those in the high exercise group give a much more positive rating of their health: 42% say excellent, and only 12% say fair or poor.

Comparative Importance of the Factors

Many of the factors cited above are related to each other, thus making it difficult to estimate which ones are most important in influencing people's self-evaluation. Older people, for example, report the lowest health ratings, and they are also most likely to have physical disabilities that prevent them from exercising. On the other hand, because of their generally poorer health, they are more likely not to drink or smoke. To account for all these factors at once, a special regression analysis was performed that allows each factor to be assessed when simultaneously controlling for the effect of all other factors. The results are shown in the graph below.

Importance Of Factors In Influencing Personal Health Ratings.

The results show that being overweight tops the list of factors that are related to self-reported physical health, taking into account people's age, exercise, smoking and drinking behavior. Thus it is given an "importance score" of 100. Close behind is smoking, with an importance score of 93. Statistically, this means that smoking correlates with physical health ratings almost as strongly as does being overweight. Growing older has an importance score of 81, suggesting that age is not as important as either smoking or being overweight in predicting how people will rate their own personal health.

While vigorous exercise positively affects how people rate their health, it is only 62% as strong a factor as being overweight and ranks last among the five factors analyzed. Moderate drinking enjoys an importance score of 70, which means that it is a slightly stronger factor in predicting how people will rate their health than is the amount they exercise. Both of these factors -- exercise and moderate drinking -- are positive contributions to people's self-evaluations of their health.

Survey Methods

These results are based on telephone interviews with a randomly selected national sample of 1,005 adults, 18 years and older, conducted Nov. 8-11, 2001. For results based on this sample, one can say with 95 percent confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus 3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

How would you describe your own physical health at this time? Would you say your physical health is -- excellent, good, only fair, or poor?

 

	Excellent	Good	Only fair	Poor	No opinion
2001 Nov 8-11	29%	49	17	5	*
* Less than 0.5%

How would you describe your own personal weight situation right now -- very overweight, somewhat overweight, about right, somewhat underweight, or very underweight?

 

	Very over- weight	Somewhat over-weight	About right	Somewhat under-weight	Very under-weight	No opinion
	%	%	%	%	%	%
2001 Nov 8-11	6	38	51	4	*	1
2001 Jul 19-22	5	41	49	5	*	*
1999 Jul 22-25	4	35	53	6	1	1
1990 Oct 11-14	7	41	46	5	1	*
* Less than 0.5%

Generally, how many days per week do you participate in each of the following activities -- or do you participate less than once a week or not at all? How about -- [ROTATED]?

A. Vigorous sports or physical activities for at least 20 minutes that cause large increases in breathing or heart rate

B. Moderate sports or recreational activities that cause slight increases in breathing or heart rate, such as walking, gardening, or other similar activities

TOTAL EXERCISE INDEX

 

	High	Medium	Low	Sedentary
2001 Nov 8-11
National Adults	31%	20	21	27
Men	36%	25	15	23
Women	26%	17	26	31

 

Have you, yourself, smoked any cigarettes in the past week?

 

 

	Yes	No			Yes	No
	%	%			%	%
2001 Nov 8-11	26	74		1989 Apr 4-9	29	71
				1988 Jul 1-7	32	68
2001 Jul 19-22	28	72		1987 Mar 14-18	30	70
2000 Nov 13-15	25	75		1986 Jun 9-16	31	69
1999 Sep 23-26	23	77		1985 Jun 7-10	35	65
1998 Jun 22-23	28	72		1983	38	62
1997 Sep 25-28	26	74		1981 Jun 26-29	35	65
1997 Jun 26-29	26	74		1978 Jan 20-23	36	64
1997 Jun 23-24	26	74		1977 Aug 19-22	38	62
1997 May 6-7	25	75		1974 May 10-13	40	60
1997 Mar 24-26	27	73		1972 Apr 21-24	43	57
1996 May 9-12	27	73		1971 May 14-17	42	58
1994 Jul 15-17	27	73		1969 Jul 24-29	40	60
1994 Mar 11-13	27	73		1957	42	58
1991 Nov 7-10	28	72		1954	45	55
1990 Jul 6-8	27	73		1949	44	56
1989 May 15-18	27	73		1944	41	59

How often, if ever, do you drink alcoholic beverages such as liquor, wine or beer -- every day, a few times a week, about once a week, less than once a week, only on special occasions such as New Year's and holidays, or never?

 

	Every day	A few times a week	About once a week	Less than once a week	Only on special occasions	Never	No opinion
2001 Nov 8-11	7%	12	13	14	24	30	*
* Less than 0.5%