Depression symptoms linked to weight gain in people with overweight, obesity
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Key takeaways:
- For every increment increase in a participant’s depressive score, their weight increased by 45 g the next month.
- Although the increase was small, it can lead to greater weight gain over time, a researcher said.
An increase in symptoms of depression was linked to a small increase in weight among adults with overweight or obesity, according to a recent study in PLOS One.
“Our findings tentatively suggest that, if weight management programs for adults with overweight or obesity monitor depressive symptoms over time and intervene when symptoms rise above their usual level (even if criteria for clinical diagnoses of depression are not met), this may help prevent future weight gain,” Julia Mueller, PhD, MSc, a research associate at the University of Cambridge, told Healio.
According to Mueller and colleagues, the relationship between mental health and obesity is “complex and remains poorly understood.”
So, they analyzed data from 2,133 adults (mean age, 58 years; 45.5% men) in the United Kingdom who completed mental health and weight measurements over a course of 6 to 9 months to determine associations between stress, anxiety and depression with changes in weight.
Mueller and colleagues found that for every increment increase in a participant’s usual depressive score, their weight increased by 45 g (95% CI, 0.021-0.069) 1 month later. The association was seen only in those with overweight or obesity, who had an average weight increase of 52 g (95% CI, 0.01-0.094) and 71 g (95% CI, 0.013-0.129), respectively.
“Previous evidence highlights that some people have a tendency to eat more in response to negative emotions (known as ‘emotional eating’) whereas others do not,” Mueller said. “Why people differ in their eating behavior is currently not quite clear, but it’s likely a combination of factors like genes, the environment and (early) life experiences.”
She pointed out that even small changes in depressive scores were predictive of weight gain, “regardless of whether people met definitions for ‘clinical depression’ or not.”
“This means our findings are relevant to the general population rather than only to those with clinical levels of poor mental health,” she said.
Although the weight changes were small, Mueller said that “even small weight changes occurring over short periods of time can lead to larger weight changes in the long term, particularly among those with overweight and obesity.”
“People with a high BMI are already at greater risk from other health conditions, so this could potentially lead to a further deterioration in their health,” she said. “In future research, we plan to examine how we can use our understanding of the relationship between mental well-being and bodyweight to develop more psychologically supportive weight management programs.”
References:
- Feeling depressed linked to short-term increase in bodyweight, study finds. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1030397. Published Jan. 10, 2023. Accessed Jan. 9, 2023.
- Mueller J, et al. PLOS One. 2023;doi:0.1371/journal.pone.0295117.
Perspective
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Stress eating is a known phenomenon, and depression can be a food trigger. Depression on the converse can be a consequence of obesity. There is a well-documented association between obesity and mental illness. Although this remains an interesting study, I am not sure to what extent short-term mood has a relation to minor weight fluctuations and if it will have long-term effects on morbidity and mortality.
The study was conducted during the onset of the COVID pandemic, which had profound and perhaps unquantifiable effects on the psyche of the study participants. This may have had an effect on their eating habits in and of itself. The study does not consider the potential weight gain associated with antidepressant medications as a factor. In addition, weight was self-reported by study participants on their own scales, thus the accuracy is questionable.
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