Which measures of obesity are related to depressive symptoms and in whom?

Weonjeong Lim, Ka Mala S. Thomas, Wayne A. Bardwell, Joel E. Dimsdale

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

26 Scopus citations

Abstract

The authors asked which obesity measurements were associated with depressive symptoms, whether this relationship differed by gender, and whether controlling for fatigue and response bias affected the relationship. A sample of 129 subjects (66 men, 63 women), with a mean age of 36.9 years and a mean Body Mass Index (BMI) of 26.4 participated in the study. Depressive symptoms, levels of fatigue, response bias, and anthropometrics were assessed. In women, but not men, BMI and percent of ideal body weight were related to depression. However, percent of body fat did not show a relationship with depression after controlling for fatigue and response bias. These findings suggest that women's depressive symptoms are more influenced by body size than body fat composition, whereas men's depressive symptoms seem to be unrelated to obesity.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)23-28
Number of pages6
JournalPsychosomatics
Volume49
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2008

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This study was supported by grants HL36005 , HL44915 , and RR0827 from the National Institute of Health, and from the Ewha Woman's University, Korea .

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