La relación entre la obesidad y estados depresivos

Association between abdominal obesity and depressive symptoms in Peruvian women aged 18-49 years: a sub-analysis of the Demographic and Family Health Survey 2018-2019

OBJECTIVE

Abdominal obesity (AO) is characterised by excess adipose tissue. It is a metabolic risk that affects the physical and mental health, particularly in women since they are more prone to mental health problems like depression. This study investigated the association between AO and depressive symptoms in Peruvian women of reproductive age (18-49 years).

DESIGN

This is a cross-sectional observational study.

SETTING

Peruvian women population of reproductive age.

PARTICIPANTS

We used data from the Peruvian Demographic and Family Health Survey (DHS) for 2018 and 2019 to assess 17 067 women for the presence of depressive symptoms (using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9): cut-off score ≥ 10) and AO (measured by abdominal circumference; cut-off score ≥88 cm).

RESULTS

We observed a 64·55 % prevalence of AO and 7·61 % of depressive symptoms in the study sample. Furthermore, 8·23 % of women with AO had depressive symptoms (P < 0·05). Initially, women with AO appeared to have a 26 % higher risk of depressive symptoms compared with women without AO (P = 0·028); however, after adjustment for covariates, no statistically significant association was observed.

CONCLUSIONS

Therefore, although both conditions are common in women of this age group, no significant association was found between AO and depressive symptoms.

[Weight stigma, Mediterranean diet and obesity]

INTRODUCTION

obesity is a disease that affects a high percentage of the world's population. Although its origin is multicausal and multifactorial, less attention has been paid to psychological and behavioral variables.

AIM

to determine whether psychological variables (weight stigma, stress and depressive symptomatology) and behavioral variable (Mediterranean diet index) predict obesity according to body mass index (BMI), controlling for the effect of physiological variables (HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose and blood pressure) and sociodemographic variables (sex, income, educational level).

METHODS

non-experimental, cross-sectional, correlational design. By means of a non-probabilistic convenience sampling, 344 persons were selected from the general Chilean population from the Araucanía region (Mage = 55.7 years; SD = 5.1 years; 55.8 % women). A blood sample, anthropometric measurement of weight and height, and self-report measures of psychological and behavioral variables were obtained.

RESULTS

a 5-block hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed. Sociodemographic covariates did not significantly predict BMI, however physiological covariates, the behavioral variable and weight stigma, were significantly associated with BMI, with weight stigma being the predictor that explained the most variance.

CONCLUSIONS

the findings allow us to verify the role of psychological and behavioral variables in the multifactorial etiology of obesity. The findings are discussed in the light of the biopsychosocial approach, and a multidisciplinary approach to obesity is suggested.