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Study confirms link between obesity and depression
November 16, 2018.
Other work had already elucidated the problem without establishing a very clear causal link. It’s done: we now know that obesity leads to greater risks of depression, especially in women.
Obesity increases the risk of depression
This study, conducted by researchers from the University of South Australia and the University of Exeter (United Kingdom) and published on November 13, 2018 in the’International Journal of Epidemiology, has the merit of confirm previous work and finally establish a cause and effect link between depression and obesity. The large-scale study looked at 48,000 depressive patients and a control group of 290,000 people.
The results leave little room for doubt: in case of obesity (when the body mass index exceeds 30kg / m2), the risk of depression increases, especially in women. More specifically, for each increase in BMI of 4.7 points, the risk of depression increases between 18% and 23% in women.
Psychological discomfort linked to a lack of self-esteem
The link between physiology and psychology is not difficult to establish when we realize how much our society is attached to the image of the body and thinness in particular. Thus, a woman with a high BMI suffers from her image, lacks self-esteem and does not accept her body.
The study also focuses on the health costs that States must cover to face this epidemic of obesity which leads, it should be remembered, cancers, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and depression. The international community spends a trillion dollars every year to finance this sector.
Maylis Choné
Read also: Obesity, more than a diet problem