Despite these strengths, the current research had some limitations. One major concern is that our educated sample is not representative and thus the findings may not be generalizable. As noted above, however, many of the findings were consistent with findings from very different, more diverse populations. Another potential limitation is that with a comprehensive FFM measure of personality traits and multiple anthropometric measures, we necessarily conducted a large number of statistical tests, increasing the possibility of Type 1 errors. Although certainly a legitimate concern, several factors help to alleviate this limitation. The findings were largely consistent with our hypotheses derived from the literature on personality and weight. Further, we found a similar pattern of associations both across the four different measures of adiposity in cross-sectional analyses and longitudinal analyses. We also focused primarily on the findings that were consistent across methods and with previous research.
