Weight Loss

According to U.S. researchers, obese people do not fit the joyful stereotype attached to them. To the contrary, they are more likely to become victims of a whole range of psychiatric disorders, a new scientific study says.

 
Over 9,000 severely overweight and healthy-weighed people of both sexes were studied during the recently conducted research, part of a larger U.S. survey of mental disorders in the country. The average age of the participants was 45. While no correlation was found between the sexes, scientists revealed that obese people had a 25 percent increase in probability to develop manic-depressive disorder, agoraphobia, panic illness, substance-use disorders, and clinical depression. The higher the education and the bigger the income, the stronger the relationship between obesity and mental conditions, which can reach the rate of almost 44 percent in wealthy and educated people suffering from obesity. This could be explained by the fact that severely overweight people are less acceptable in “higher” social groups and, therefore, they often experience the stigma and low self-esteem attached to their bodily condition. In groups where obesity is less stigmatized, being severely overweight does not seem to lead to depression and other physiological disorders to the same degree.

Obesity can also cause a wide array of other health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, kidney and gallbladder stones, arthritis, and even cancer. In addition, obese patients with depression or anxiety are less likely to be successful in their attempts to lose weight, since they  usually respond to stressful situations by overeating.