Mental Health Effects of Obesity
The Psychological Consequences of Being Overweight Vs. Underweight
Jul 25, 2007
The mental health effects of obesity can be as damaging to your health as the physical effects, according to recent obesity research. Mental health struggles caused by being overweight include social discrimination, low self-esteem, and even suicide.
Being underweight can have worse mental health effects, though.
Obesity Research: College Attendance
Obesity research from the University of Texas at Austin reveals that obese girls are half as likely to attend college as slim girls. Robert Crosnoe conducted the study, which tracked nearly 11,000 American adolescents, and found that boys didn't differ from their non-obese peers in college attendance. Obese girls are more likely to consider committing suicide and using drugs and alcohol than their slimmer peers.
Crosnoe states: "That girls are far more vulnerable to the non-health risks of obesity reinforces the notion that body image is more important to girls' self-concept and that social norms have greater effects on the education of girls than boys."
The mental health effects of obesity in girls is stronger than boys because girls are more tuned in to their appearance. Body image affects not only their self-esteem but their levels of achievement as well.
Obesity Research: Anxiety & Depression
Social discrimination includes the way society views you based on your appearance. The mental health effects of obesity include social discrimination – people often judge and mistreat individuals who are overweight. Obese people are seen as lazy and lacking in willpower, or incapable of looking after themselves properly. They're socially undesirable, which increases their chances of anxiety and depression.
Obesity Research: Less Physical Activity
Obese women and men are less physically active because it's not only more difficult to move around, it's embarrassing to change in the locker rooms at the gym. Many obese people don't feel comfortable in fitness classes because of their size and shape. This lack of physical activity contributes to the mental health effects of obesity by increasing feelings of depression and anxiety (physical activity reduces feelings of depression and anxiety).
Obesity Research: Underweight People Most Depressed
Professor Tony Jorm from the Centre for Mental Health Research at the Australian National University studied the mental health effects of obesity and found that obese people struggle with depression and anxiety. Surprisingly, underweight people were more likely to deal with mental health problems.
Professor Jorm states: "Underweight people also have the advantage in that they have less physical disability and physical ill-health than obese people, and that masks the underlying tendency to anxiety and depression, but when we extract out the physical ill-health component, we're left with this picture that it's the underweight that have the worst mental health."
Whether you're overweight or underweight, taking care of your emotional and mental health is one of the best things you can do for your body and life.
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