Magnitude and attributed reasons for adult weight gain amongst women at increased risk of breast cancer

BMC Women's Health

Table 3 Self-reported reasons for weight gain for women with weight gain of ≥5% weight in adulthood (n = 401)

Reason		Number stating reason	% stating reason
1	Children / Childcare / Pregnancy	224	55.96^a
2	Inactivity	168	41.9
3	Comfort or boredom eating	153	38.2
4	Portion Size	130	32.4
5	Stress	110	27.4
6	Marriage / settling down	96	23.9
7	Work / Study	81	20.2
8	Menopause / HRT	73	18.2^b
9	Bereavement	73	18.2
10	Depression	64	16.0
11	Takeaways / Ready meals	61	15.2
12	Lack of time to prepare food	55	13.7
13	Alcohol	48	12.0
14	Food Preferences (own/family)	43	10.7
15	Giving up smoking	41	10.5
16	Health problems / Medications	38	9.5
17	Contraceptives	17	4.2
18	Cooking skills	11	2.7
19	Cost of healthy food	10	2.5
20	Eating out	6	1.5
21	Lack of sleep / tiredness	6	1.5
22	Carer	4	1.0
23	Fertility treatment	4	1.0
24	Social life / holidays	4	1.0
25	Sweet tooth	3	0.7
26	Divorce	2	0.5
27	Hysterectomy / oophorectomy	1	0.2
28	Appetite / Hunger	1	0.2
29	Premenstrual hunger	1	0.2
30	Progesterone replacement	1	0.2

Excluding women missing percentage weight change (n = 32), women with percentage weight gain ≤5% (n = 12), and women not giving reasons for weight gain (n = 72): women could have been excluded for more than one of these reasons. Total excluded = 100. Participants could give multiple reasons for weight gain
^aIncludes all women but only n = 327 women known to have children. Of those with children, 224/327 (68.5%) gave Children / Childcare / Pregnancy as a reason for their weight gain
^bIncludes all women but only n = 188 women known to be peri/postmenopausal women. Of peri/postmenopausal women, 73/188 (38.8%) gave menopause/HRT as a reason for their weight gain

ISSN: 1472-6874