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Depressed Adolescents Face Higher Obesity Risks
A DGReview of :"A prospective study of the role of depression in the development and persistence of adolescent obesity."
Pediatrics Electronic Pages
09/16/2002
By Elda Hauschildt
Young people who are depressed face an increased risk of developing obesity which can persist during adolescent years.
Age-adjusted body mass index (BMI) also increases in adolescents who are depressed and already obese, United States researchers report.
"Using data from a nationally representative cohort of more than 9,000 adolescents who were surveyed in 1995 and again one year later, we have shown that depressed mood at baseline was associated with the development of obesity in those not yet obese at baseline and with an increase in age-adjusted BMI in those already obese at baseline," they comment.
Investigators from the University of Cincinnati and Children's Hospital Medical Centre in Cincinnati, Ohio, say the odds of obesity developing in teenagers not obese at baseline doubles if the young people are depressed.
The risk persisted after several factors related to both depressed mood and obesity were controlled: low self-esteem, low levels of physical activity, parental obesity and lower levels of parental education.
The researchers did a prospective, cohort study of 9,374 adolescents completing in-home interviews for the US National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
Depressed mood was assessed using the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. They calculated BMI from self-reported height and weight.
The investigators found 12.9 percent of participants were overweight, 9.7 percent were obese and 8.8 percent had depressed mood.
Baseline depression was not significantly correlated with baseline obesity, but being depressed at baseline independently predicted obesity at follow-up. The odds ratio was 2.05 after the researchers controlled for various factors such as age, race, gender, number of parents in the home and family socio-economic status.
Of the 9.7 percent of participants who were obese at follow-up, 79.6 percent had been obese at baseline, 18.6 percent had been overweight at baseline and 1.8 percent had been of normal weight.
Pediatrics, 2002; 110: 497-504
"A prospective study of the role of depression in the development and persistence of adolescent obesity."
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