The media constantly bombards us with the topic of weight to the point that it has become something of an obsession in our society. Now there is no denying that we have seen an increase in obesity among Americans, which certainly makes us question our overall health and lifestyle which can impact our weight. Having said that, I want to investigate the following research questions: How can marital status as a factor impact an individual's weight? How do gender and age affect weight gain or loss in terms of marital status? The independent variables for this project are age, gender, and marital status. Age is an interval ratio variable, and sex and marital status are both nominal variables. Moving on to the dependent variable, weight is the outcome variable I will focus on. Taking into account the level of measurement, weight is considered an interval ratio variable, but in this case it is a nominal variable because it contains categories with respondents' possible opinions on what they consider to be their body type. These variables were chosen from the dataset provided by HINTS, which stands for Health Information National Trends Survey. As mentioned on their website, “HINTS regularly collects nationally representative data on the American public's use of cancer-related information” (http://hints.cancer.gov/). In 2008, HINTS had a representative sample of 7,674 Americans, which ultimately helped generate the current database. This national survey allows people to browse its own data set that provides information about health, particularly cancer. With the use of the HINTS dataset users can gain knowledge of the listed variables and then find a correlation between...... half of the article ...... iedman, M. , Dixon, A. , & Brownell, K. (1999). Marital status, marital satisfaction, and body image dissatisfaction. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 26(1), 81-85.SUGGESTIONS. http://hints.cancer.gov/Sobal, J., & Hanson, K. (2011). Marital status, marital history, body weight and obesity. Marriage & Family Review, 47(7), 474-504. Sobal, J., & Rauschenbach, B. (2003). Sex, marital status, and body weight in US older adults. Gender Issues, 21(3), 75-94. Sobal, J., Rauschenbach, B., & Frongillo, E. (2003). Changes in marital status and changes in body weight: A longitudinal analysis of the United States. Social Sciences and Medicine, 56(7), 1543-1555.Umberson, D., Liu, H., & Powers, D. (2009). Marital status, marital transitions and body weight. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 50(3), 327-343. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/61743878?accountid=9840