title: Consideration of immediate and future consequences, smoking status, and body mass index.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Health-related behaviors often involve immediate costs to achieve long-term benefits. How one considers the future outcomes of present day behaviors (e.g., temporal orientation) may play a role in engagement in healthy behaviors. The Consideration of Future Consequences Scale (CFCS) measures temporal orientation on a unidimensional continuum. Recently, 2 subscales of the CFCS have been reported: immediate (CFC-I) and future (CFC-F) consequences. These support a multidimensional conceptualization of temporal orientation. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed on CFCS data. The associations between 2 health-related variables [smoking and body mass index (BMI)] and each subscale were then explored, controlling for sociodemographic variables.
  
  
  METHODS
  A random sample of 2,000 individuals aged 18 years or over was selected from the edited electoral role for one English city and sent a postal questionnaire, including the CFCS and questions on age, gender, socioeconomic position, and self-reported current smoking status and BMI.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Complete data was provided by 800 participants (response rate = 40.0%). The 2-factor model fitted CFCS data better than the 1-factor model. In multiple linear regression, CFC-I was positively associated with BMI, B (95% confidence interval [CI]) = 0.47 (0.06 to 0.88), p = .025; and odds of being a current smoker, odds ratio (95% CI) = 1.28 (1.02 to 1.60), p = .035; CFC-F was not associated with health-related variables.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These data support the multidimensional conceptualization of temporal orientation. Consideration of immediate consequences may be a more important determinant of health-related behaviors than consideration of future consequences.
authors: Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, England. j.m.adams@ncl.ac.uk
authors: Jean
authors: J
authors: Adams
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015992:Body Mass Index; D015984:Causality; D005260:Female; D005544:Forecasting; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013998:Time Perception