April
07-04-2006, 12:47 PM
Notion of 'fat and jolly' is folly, researchers find
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
07/04/2006
CHICAGO
Fat people are not more jolly, according to a study that instead found obesity is strongly linked with depression and other mood disorders.
Whether obesity might cause these problems or is the result of them is not certain, and the research does not provide an answer.
Depression often causes people to abandon activities, and some medications used to treat mental illness can cause weight gain. On the other hand, obesity is often seen as a stigma, and overweight people often are subject to teasing and other hurtful behavior.Advertisement
The study of more than 9,000 adults found that mood and anxiety disorders including depression were almost 25 percent more common in the obese people studied than in the nonobese. Substance abuse was an exception - obese people were about 25 percent less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol than slimmer participants.
The results appear in the July issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, released Monday. The lead author was Dr. Gregory Simon, a researcher with Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, a large nonprofit health plan in the Pacific Northwest.
The results "suggest that the cultural stereotype of the jolly fat person is more a figment of our imagination than a reality," said Dr. Wayne Fenton of the National Institute of Mental Health, which funded the study.
"The take-home message for doctors is to be on the lookout for depression among their patients who are overweight," Fenton said.
The study was based on an analysis of a national survey of 9,125 adults interviewed to assess their mental state.
About one-fourth of all participants were obese. Some 22 percent of obese participants had experienced a mood disorder including depression, compared with 18 percent of the nonobese.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
07/04/2006
CHICAGO
Fat people are not more jolly, according to a study that instead found obesity is strongly linked with depression and other mood disorders.
Whether obesity might cause these problems or is the result of them is not certain, and the research does not provide an answer.
Depression often causes people to abandon activities, and some medications used to treat mental illness can cause weight gain. On the other hand, obesity is often seen as a stigma, and overweight people often are subject to teasing and other hurtful behavior.Advertisement
The study of more than 9,000 adults found that mood and anxiety disorders including depression were almost 25 percent more common in the obese people studied than in the nonobese. Substance abuse was an exception - obese people were about 25 percent less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol than slimmer participants.
The results appear in the July issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, released Monday. The lead author was Dr. Gregory Simon, a researcher with Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, a large nonprofit health plan in the Pacific Northwest.
The results "suggest that the cultural stereotype of the jolly fat person is more a figment of our imagination than a reality," said Dr. Wayne Fenton of the National Institute of Mental Health, which funded the study.
"The take-home message for doctors is to be on the lookout for depression among their patients who are overweight," Fenton said.
The study was based on an analysis of a national survey of 9,125 adults interviewed to assess their mental state.
About one-fourth of all participants were obese. Some 22 percent of obese participants had experienced a mood disorder including depression, compared with 18 percent of the nonobese.