Humiliation influences obese teens' depression

Humiliation influences obese teens' depression THE SUN DEPRESSION is common among obese teenagers, but the association between the two may largely be explained by teens' experiences of being shamed, and other psychosocial factors, new research suggests. "There is a clear statistical association between adolescent obesity and adolescent depression," study author Dr Rickard L. Sjoberg, of Uppsala University in Sweden said. However, he added, "this association disappears when psychosocial factors and experiences of being treated in humiliating and degrading ways are controlled for." Sjoberg and colleagues analysed data from 4,703 children, aged 15 and 17 years, who participated in the Survey of Adolescent Life in Vestmanland 2004, a psychosocial health survey admin istered triannually in Sweden. They found that overweight and obesity was more common among boys than among girls, while depression was more common among girls. Obese teens reported experiencing more symptoms of depression than their normalweight or overweight peers and had a higher risk of depression, the researchers report in the journal Paediatrics. Also, obese teens were more likely to say they had been treated in a degrading manner, had been ignored or otherwise had shaming experiences within the past three months than were their normal-weight or overweight peers. Further, adolescents who reported the highest number of shame experiences were more than 11 times more likely to be depressed than those who reported the lowest number of shame experiences, the report indicates. The association between obesity and major depression disappeared, however, after the researchers took into con sideration the adoles cents' gender, parental employment, and parental separation, the report indicates. Altogether, the study's findings imply "that an understanding of the social conse quences of obesity is also necessary in order to make sense of the obe sity-depression association," said Sjoberg. He and his colleagues con clude that "these results sug gest that clinical treat ment of obesity may some times not just be a matter of diet and exercise but also of dealing with issues of shame and social isolation." ? Reuters