Depression Linked To Obesity

There was an study released  that has linked depression to obesity:

"We found that in a sample of young adults during a 15-year period, those who started out reporting high levels of depression gained weight at a faster rate than others in the study, but starting out overweight did not lead to changes in depression," said assistant Professor of Sociology Belinda Needham, from University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)...Our study is important because if you are interested in controlling obesity, and ultimately eliminating the risk of obesity-related diseases, then it makes sense to treat people's depression....It's another reason to take depression seriously and not to think about it just in terms of mental health, but to also think about the physical consequences of mental health problems," Needham added.

The full news article can be found at Study confirms depression, abdominal obesity link.

Now the reason I agree with this study so much and why it interested me is that many overweight who are depressed think the reason they are depressed is that they are overweight. When I was at my very biggest I can remember standing crying in my bedroom saying to my wife that if only I could lose weight I would be happy and that everything was perfect in my life and it was just the weight that was making me so sad. But it's not true! If the only thing that depressed you was your weight and therefore you eat more then you would never have got big in the first place. I believe that everyone eats for more than nutrition, everyone eats for the emotional benefit food gives them, now that might be to celebrate, commiserate, comfort, boredom and loads of other reasons but they will all be about making you happy.

Therefore if you can sort out the 'being happy' thing then everything else will fall into place. I still get people say that they just like food too much or that they just have a lifestyle where they eat and drink a lot and therefore it isn't about emotion. But ultimately we all know that being overweight is not good for your physical or mental health and therefore why would you choose to make yourself overweight ? The diet and health industry needs to lifts it's head and start working with people holistically if you really want to create the long term results we all crave and I am glad this study agrees with that.