How Overweight in Early Childhood Leads to Adolescent Depression?

High BMI and body dissatisfaction in early childhood are linked with an increased risk of depressive symptoms during teenage years.

Highlights:

High BMI and body dissatisfaction in early childhood can increase the risk of depression in adolescent
Social stigma and inflammatory pathways are the major drivers of overweight impacting mental health //
Girls are twice as likely as boys to experience body image issues and mental health problems

The proportion of adolescents with depressive symptoms has increased in tandem with the high BMI of children over recent decades. Many years later in life, the concern of mental health troubles is tailored by this early childhood overweight body image.

A recent longitudinal research analysis shows that body image concerns explain a significant proportion of the association between body mass index (BMI) and depression in children, particularly in girls ().

How Body Image and Mental Health Are Linked?

The study revealed that having a high BMI at age seven was associated with higher levels of body dissatisfaction by age 11 as well as higher rates of depressive symptoms by age 14, such as low mood, lack of pleasure, and poor concentration.

Body Mass Index
The BMI calculator helps you assess your weight indicating if it is normal or if you are underweight or overweight, based on your height.

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In comparison to boys, girls showed twice as much connection for each of these three variables.

Even though body dissatisfaction in girls accounted for a significant component of the connection between BMI and depressive symptoms, a greater portion of the association remained unexplained.

Adolescent depression symptoms have been linked to additional components, including inflammatory pathways. However, additional environmental factors, such as bullying or weight stigma—regardless of whether they result in the internalization of weight stigma—may account for this correlation by raising stress levels or decreasing self-worth.

Preventive Strategies

Since being overweight is a modifiable risk factor, initiatives to lower childhood weight must take into account any potential effects on mental health to prevent stigmatizing weight and to promote children's mental health and well-being, particularly for females.

Quiz on Body Mass Index (BMI)
Excessive weight could cause numerous health problems like heart disease, osteoarthritis etc. Though most of us depend on taking our weight on a scale to assess if we are overweight. A better method, however, is to measure the body mass index ...

While encouraging a balanced diet and regular exercise is crucial, some public health messages may be creating shame or guilt complexes among young kids.

Strategies to target body image concerns in early adolescence, such as psychological interventions or media literacy training could address self-esteem, social comparisons, and social media influences, but more research is needed to more effectively tackle body image concerns in young people.

Depression Calculator
A quick, simple and anonymous self-assessment health tool to assess the level of depression using the famous Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale.

Social awareness and public health policies should be addressed to reduce weight stigmatizing messages in health policies, healthcare settings, and media to prevent negative adolescent mental health outcomes.

Ultimately, to tackle the issue of overweight image in kids that has rippling effects of mental health issues in later life, there is a need for both individualistic and societal interventions.

Depression
Depression is one of the most common mental disorders affecting approximately 340 million people in the world. No one is immune from depression - it occurs in people of all social classes, all countries and all cultural settings.

Reference:

Longitudinal pathways between childhood BMI, body dissatisfaction, and adolescent depression: an observational study using the UK Millenium Cohort Study - (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(23)00365-6/fulltext)

Source-Medindia