To Explore the Relative Effects of Age and Change of Body Composition on Middle-Aged Women

Middle-aged women start aging after aged 40. The common health conditions in this stage are obesity and menopausal disorder. Due to decreasing physical activities and lower basic metabolic rate, middle-aged women increase their body fat and lead them to become obese. Women experience chronic diseases if they are obese and increase in abdominal fat. As a result of life extension, women have to experience menopause, aging, and disability. Women have serious menopausal symptoms, negative attitude toward aging and disability which would influence their quality of life. Nowadays, few studies have explored whether age, obesity, and change of body composition let middle-aged women experience more menopausal symptoms, negative attitude toward aging and more disability, which influence their quality of life. Therefore, this study will explore the relative effects of age and change of body compositions (eg., increase of waist and hip circumferences, the distribution of body fat, increasing BMI) on aging attitude, menopausal symptoms, and disability in middle-aged women; and examine how disability and menopause influences middle-aged women’s quality of life. This study is a cross-sectional research design. According to literature review, the researchers design a research model. Because the researchers need to measure height, weight, waist circumference, hip circumference and body fat, the data collection is a face to face interview. The subjects of the study are residences in our communities. The sample size is 300 middle-aged women. Face to face Interviewing, measuring body compositions and filling out several structural questionnaires will be used to data collection. Descriptive and inferential statistic methods are applied. The main inferential statistic is structural equation modeling which will test the causal relations among variables and examine the research model and the research hypotheses. This research model can help health care providers understand how middle-aged women’s change of body composition influence their menopause and quality of life and also let health care providers understand how self-perception aging or age of middle-aged women impact their physical function and quality of life.

Project ID:PC10308-0643
External Project ID:MOST103-2314-B182-039