Depression and obesity

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511544293.012

11 - Depression and obesity

from Part 2 - Depression and specific health problems

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 September 2009

Lucy Cooke and

Jane Wardle

Edited by

Andrew Steptoe

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Lucy Cooke: Affiliation:
Health Behaviour Unit Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, UK
Jane Wardle: Affiliation:
Health Behaviour Unit, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, UK
Andrew Steptoe: Affiliation:
University College London

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Summary

Introduction

It is estimated that at least 300 million people worldwide are obese and two to three times more are overweight [1]. Rates vary enormously from country to country, but the situation in the USA is particularly alarming: current figures suggest that over 65% of US adults are overweight, of whom over 30% are obese (body mass index [BMI] ≥ 30) and almost 5% are severely obese (BMI ≥ 40) [2]. Although associations between obesity and physical health consequences such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, as well as all-cause mortality, are well documented [3–6], the psychological impact of obesity remains poorly characterised.

In the heyday of psychosomatics, obesity was believed to be a consequence of either misinterpreting emotional arousal as hunger or using food as a form of self-medication in order to cope with distress [7]. Obese people were assumed to have extensive psychopathology, and the treatment of choice was psychotherapy. However, when larger-scale epidemiological studies were carried out, it became clear that there were no systematic differences in either personality or rates of psychiatric illness between obese and normal-weight adults [8]. With time, the psychosomatic theory lost ground as a basis for management of obesity, but interest in the link with depression has lived on. Recent years have seen evidence that stress is associated with adiposity [9, 10], and both cortisol and leptin have been implicated in linking the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis and adipose tissue [11, 12].

Keywords

beck depression inventory brief symptom inventory Brownell depression obesity obese individuals Friedman

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Type: Chapter
Information: Depression and Physical Illness , pp. 238 - 262
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511544293.012 [Opens in a new window]
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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