Depression, Anxiety, and Severity of Obesity in Adolescents Is Emotional Eating the Link?

• Published in: Clinical pediatrics Vol. 55; no. 12; pp. 1120 - 1125
• Main Authors: Fox, Claudia K., Gross, Amy C., Rudser, Kyle D., Foy, Allison M. H., Kelly, Aaron S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01-10-2016; Westminster Publications, Inc
• Subjects: Adolescent; Anxiety; Anxiety Disorders - epidemiology; Anxiety Disorders - psychology; Child; Child psychology; Comorbidity; Cross-Sectional Studies; Depressive Disorder - epidemiology; Depressive Disorder - psychology; Emotions; Feeding Behavior - psychology; Female; Humans; Male; Mental depression; Obesity; Pediatric Obesity - epidemiology; Pediatric Obesity - psychology; Pediatrics; Retrospective Studies; Severity of Illness Index; Surveys and Questionnaires; Weight control; anxiety; depression; severe obesity; adolescents; emotional eating
• ISSN: 0009-9228; 1938-2707
• DOI: 10.1177/0009922815615825

The purposes of this study were to characterize the impact of depression and anxiety on the severity of obesity among youth seeking weight management treatment and to determine the extent to which emotional eating mediates the relationship between depression and/or anxiety and degree of obesity. This cross-sectional, retrospective chart review of 102 adolescent patients from a weight management clinic analyzed demographics, body mass index, depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9), and anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-7) screens and the Child Eating Behavior Questionnaire, Emotional Over-Eating subscale. After adjusting for demographics and emotional eating, the odds of having severe obesity versus obesity were 3.5 times higher for patients with depression compared with those without (odds ratio [OR] = 3.5; 95% CI = 1.1, 11.3; P = .038) and nearly 5 times higher for those with anxiety (OR = 4.9; CI = 1.2, 20.9; P = .030). Emotional eating, however, was not a mediator between depression/anxiety and degree of adiposity.