Too fat, too skinny, too depressed

William Atkins
Wednesday, 22 September 2010 00:57

Science - Health

A study called the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index found that severely overweight (obese) people and underweight (skinny) people had more risk from depression than normal and overweight weight people.

The study, conducted by Gallup and Healthways, was performed from January to September 2010.

In all, 250,187 interviews were conducted of adults 18 years or older as part of the larger report called the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

People responding to the interviews were asked about their body weight and height, whether they had ever been diagnosed with depression, and other pertinent questions.

The results of the study concerning weight and depression are summarized in the Gallup article 'Obesity Linked to Lower Emotional Wellbeing.'

The article states that people who are obese (excessively overweight) are diagnosed with depression 23.2% of the time, and people who are underweight have that same diagnosis 19.1% of the time.

On the other hand, people who are overweight are diagnosed with depression only 14.9% of the time, and normal weight people even less at 14.3%.

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