Obese People are Prone to Depression

According to U.S. researchers, obese people do not fit the joyful stereotype attached to them. To the contrary, they are more likely to become victims of a whole range of psychiatric disorders, a new scientific study says.

Over 9,000 severely overweight and healthy-weighed people of both sexes were studied during the recently conducted research, part of a larger U.S. survey of mental disorders in the country. The average age of the participants was 45. While no correlation was found between the sexes, scientists revealed that obese people had a 25 percent increase in probability to develop manic-depressive disorder, agoraphobia, panic illness, substance-use disorders, and clinical depression. The higher the education and the bigger the income, the stronger the relationship between obesity and mental conditions, which can reach the rate of almost 44 percent in wealthy and educated people suffering from obesity. This could be explained by the fact that severely overweight people are less acceptable in “higher” social groups and, therefore, they often experience the stigma and low self-esteem attached to their bodily condition. In groups where obesity is less stigmatized, being severely overweight does not seem to lead to depression and other physiological disorders to the same degree.

The results of the study were published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry. Scientists from Harvard Medical School, who also participated in the research, concluded that obesity was largely to blame for an epidemic of anxiety, mood disorders, depression, and other mental illnesses widely spread among the general population of industrialized countries, especially the U.S. In this connection, unprecedented, rising rates of obesity in the U.S. are expected to cause a huge decline in both the quality of life and life expectancy, says the lead author of the study, psychiatrist Dr. Gregory Simon of Seattle Group Health Co-operative.

The obesity situation in Canada is comparable to that of the United States, which leads to the same problems with the mental illness among the population. It is estimated that almost half of all adults and more than one fourth of children in Canada are either overweight or obese.

In addition to this newly established fact that obesity can cause the mental illness, depression and other mental disorders can also be a cause of obesity. Common symptoms of depression include social withdrawal, inactivity, increased appetite, especially for sweets and starches, and inevitable weight gain. Medications used to treat depression and anxiety are also associated with weight gain.

Obesity can also cause a wide array of other health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, kidney and gallbladder stones, arthritis, and even cancer. In addition, obese patients with depression or anxiety are less likely to be successful in their attempts to lose weight, since they  usually respond to stressful situations by overeating.

Tim Ford

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