OBJECTIVE: Two relatively common myths regarding the impact of obesity on quality of life are: 1) women are affected more than men; and 2) QOL impacts of obesity decline with age. Qualitative work during the development of the Obesity and Weight Loss Quality-of-Life Measure (OWLQOL) indicated that these assumptions may not necessarily be completely valid. We explore the degree to which weight-related quality of life varies between gender and across age groups. METHODS: Through Knowledge Networks, a web-based TV survey panel similar to the national population, an adult sample (age > 20) of 1342 obese persons (BMI >=30) was prospectively and randomly selected. Quality of life was measured by the total summary score and four subdomain scores of the OWLQOL. QOL scores were plotted by age and gender. Analysis of variance was used to examine the significance of the differences between group means. RESULTS: The greatest disparities in QOL scores by gender appear in the younger (20-35) age group where the mean OWLQOL score for males was 82.7, and only 58.4 for females (F=75.6; P<0.001). The smallest gender differences between mean scores was demonstrated in the oldest (66+) group (87.3 for males and 77.7 for females (F=11.5; P=0.001)). When assessing QOL scores separately by gender, the differences between age groups are only significant within the female group (P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The significant differences in weight-related quality of life (24.3 point difference in the younger group and 9.6 for the oldest group) tend to be masked when looking only at combined group totals. Evidence from this data suggests that women are affected differently by obesity than men (but more so in the younger age groups) and that negative QOL impacts from obesity do lessen with age, but these differences are only significantly different for female populations.