Ep.25 Exploring the Link between Overweight and Mental Health in Teens
Oct 11, 2023
Dr Jenny Gourgari
Do you ever wonder if your child's weight could be impacting their mental health?
Dr Gourgari presents a fascinating study from Sweden detailing how excess weight can potentially lead to mental health issues in youngsters.
Why does this happen?
If we know why, we can potentially address these underlying factors and help children be in a better mental state.
The title of the research that is presented is "Anxiety and depression in children and adolescents with obesity: a nationwide study in Sweden", Lindberg et al. BMC Medicine (2020) 18:30
Tune in to uncover the science behind safe weight loss for teens and understand the mental health challenges they could face.
Dr Gourgari is a pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine expert and weight loss coach for teens with more than 15 years of experience. She helps teens build healthy habits that last, so they can feel happier, be more confident and love their body again .
Do you ever wonder if your child's weight could be impacting their mental health?
Dr Gourgari presents a fascinating study from Sweden detailing how excess weight can potentially lead to mental health issues in youngsters.
Why does this happen?
If we know why, we can potentially address these underlying factors and help children be in a better mental state.
The title of the research that is presented is "Anxiety and depression in children and adolescents with obesity: a nationwide study in Sweden", Lindberg et al. BMC Medicine (2020) 18:30
Tune in to uncover the science behind safe weight loss for teens and understand the mental health challenges they could face.
Dr Gourgari is a pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine expert and weight loss coach for teens with more than 15 years of experience. She helps teens build healthy habits that last, so they can feel happier, be more confident and love their body again .
This is the Lifestyle in Weight Loss for Teens podcast. If you are a mom and want to help your child who is struggling to lose weight, you are in the right place. If you are looking for healthy lifestyle tips, dr Gorgary is here to help you understand the science around safe weight loss in teens and children, because what works for adult weight loss is not always the best for children. This podcast is for educational purposes only. Dr Gorgary does not provide medical, psychological or nutrition therapy advice. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat any health problems without consulting your own medical practitioner and now your host, dr Jenny Gorgary.
Speaker 2:
Hello, welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle in Weight Loss for Teens podcast. This is Dr Jenny Gorgary, and today's topic is about anxiety and depression in children and adolescents that struggle with their weight. The research I'm going to present today was done in Sweden and the title of the article is Anxiety and Depression in Children and Adolescents, with Abyssinia and Nationwide Study in Sweden. Now, I chose this topic because oftentimes we feel that having a little bit of extra weight does not necessarily mean anything for besides a cosmetic thing, and if we address the how, the cosmetic effect, then there's nothing else wrong with it. So I wanted to bring to your attention this study because it shows how anxiety and depression can be linked to extra weight in children and if not all children, obviously, and to, if this is the case for a teenager, your teenager. Then that is a good thing to be addressed before it gets to the point that it becomes worse. So this was really a big nationwide study.
Speaker 2:
In Sweden they have a big cohort of more than 12,000 kids. They were between the ages of six to 17 years and they had participated in a cohort that was the Swedish Childhood Obesity Treatment Register. They compared the kids that were part of this cohort with kids that had similar age, sex, the date of birth, where they were living, but they were not overweight, so they were kids in the general population and then they tried to identify whether the kids that they participated in the Childhood Obesity Treatment were more likely to have depression and anxiety compared to the kids that were not overweight or obese. So the way they did this study is they collected data on height and weight once again to calculate the body mass index, which is a measurement that scientists use to evaluate the degree of overweight in children and teenagers. You don't know what BMI is. I invite you to go back to episode one, where I explain in more details what is a healthy body mass index for any teenager in a certain age and how you can find out how much weight, what is the ideal weight for a certain teenager in a certain age. So they collected they captured this body mass index for all the kids that participated in this study and they also looked. They have very good data on the medications that they were using. So they were seeing whether they were using medications for depression or anxiety and whether they had certain diagnosis in the records that gave them the diagnosis of anxiety or depression.
Speaker 2:
Now they also looked at other factors that could be contributing to being overweight or being depressed, actually like having a family history of anxiety or depression, because those kids may be more likely just because there is some family history of depression and anxiety. They look at the socioeconomic status, because that is another factor that may affect anxiety or depression. They look to see whether they have other conditions that can cause anxiety or depression, like ADHD, whether they had autism or they had mild intellectual disability. So they looked at these factors to make sure that they take those that risk into consideration when they did their analysis and what they found was that Indeed the boys and girls that had pediatric obesity, they were at higher risk to have depression and anxiety and indeed the girls had a 43% higher risk of anxiety and depression compared to girls that were in a normal weight, and also similar risk was in boys. They were 33% more likely also to have anxiety and depression. That was most likely due to their fact that they were overweight and not due to potential other reasons that they took into consideration.
Speaker 2:
Now this is an important, in my opinion, message. It kind of shows us that the kids can really have some serious mental health issues related to the extra weight that we should take into consideration to address these mental health issues, because oftentimes we're not aware that they have them, they may not express them in a way that is very obvious, and also to address the reasons that lead to that and one ways to address the weight and unhealthy weight and unhealthy behaviors and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. And, of course, one question that arises is why is this lean and why does this happen? And there can be a few possible explanations for this. One is that that extra weight gain has been associated with some kind of inflammation in the body and there can be some genetic background that leads to that and it can. It is the same genetic background that is linked also with this tendency to gain extra weight, and there can be the same reasons underlying the development of depression and anxiety and also putting on extra weight. So that is one possible explanation.
Speaker 2:
More into the biological spectrum of the explanation, another reason is because oftentimes kids that have depression and anxiety, they're treated with antidepressant medications or medications that fight their anxiety, and these medications, as a side effect, have gaining weight. So it is this relationship between medications and weight gain, weight gain and depression. So it's hard to tease out which one is which, but for sure, after the initiation of antidepressants and anxiolytics, we know that some individuals tend to gain weight and that's why psychotherapy, and not medications, may be appropriate for some kids, but it's not for all kids and that's why the mental health professionals are important in this case. Other potential reasons is that kids that are overweight, they tend to not be very physically active, and we know that physical activity improves mental health, decreases depression, so it could be also a link that has to do with not being super physically active. The same is also true for sleep disturbance.
Speaker 2:
We know that some of the teenagers that struggle with their weight, they don't sleep well, and not sleeping well can also affect how you feel, can affect your mood and can make you more prone to have more depressed feelings and be more on the edge.
Speaker 2:
So that's another possible explanation, and also there are other factors that have to do with the social aspects, like, for example, kids and teenagers with obesity may be bullied or teased about their weight and that can create some painful experiences for them and which can also lead to anxiety and depression.
Speaker 2:
So the take home message, I think, from this very important study because, as I mentioned, it was done in more than 12,000 children in Sweden tells us that we have to consider carefully the possibility of mental health problems in kids that struggle with their weight and do our best to address mental health symptoms and also do our best to ensure that those kids are in a healthy weight by maintaining healthy habits and a healthy relationship with their food. And if you are looking for food that is healthy and want to feed a teenager that is always hungry, I have created a list of 30 recipes that can all be made in less than 30 minutes and are high in protein, which you may find helpful. You can go to lifestyle14scom for us last recipes and you can download that for free. I hope this episode was helpful and I will be with you again next week. Take care Bye.
Speaker 1:
If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, I invite you to come check out the LIFT program. It's Dr Gorgary's 12-week coaching program for teens and their moms, where we take all this information, we apply it to your daily life and we work together so your teenager learns how to create a healthy lifestyle so they can feel happier, more confident, less stressed and love their body again. Visit the website at lifestyle14scom and click on the work with me and free resources to learn more about this program and get free help to start this journey right away. Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode of Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens.