Obesity and depression: Are they related?

Pages: 1472-1475
Neelam Rathee (Department of Psychology, Govt. College for Girls, Sector -11, Chandigarh)

Obesity is a common disorder that is becoming even more common. Prevalence of depression among present population is also increasing. For years, it was assumed that any relationship of depression to obesity in the general population was largely coincidental. Research in the recent past, however, has uncovered a large number of mediating variables that relate depression and obesity. Depression influences obesity under some circumstances and obesity influences depression under others. The present study is an attempt to gain some insight into the complex relationship of obesity and depression using Body Mass Index (BMI) for obesity factor and depression score obtained by Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Findings revealed significant positive correlation between the level of obesity and depression of normal, overweight and obese subjects. The test of significance of difference (t-test) revealed significant difference between the means of depression of the three groups.