Obesity is still an ongoing problem of countries around the world and has already caused people to withdraw from society because they fear they will be rejected. No matter how far you've gone in life, or how high your education is, there is still no hiding when it comes to the effect your weight has on you. A recent study has revealed that educated obese women are still at risk for depression. Whether you have a PhD, or a high school drop-out, being overweight can make you feel very sad, the study says.
Experts have recently determined that there is indeed a relationship between obesity and depression. It is what they call a bidirectional relationship, meaning that both conditions can cause the other. According to the lead author of the study Ashley Kranjac, a postdoctoral fellow in population health at Rice University in Houston and her colleagues oppose to what some researchers suggest that having a bachelor's degree have a protective effect against poor health effects. In fact, Kranjac emphasized that overweight women are two times more at risk for depression than normal weight women with a similar education, medical daily reported.
"Previous research has shown an association of depression and obesity with low education, but we're showing it also exists with women who have higher education as well," said Kranjac. ABC13 reported that researchers based their weight evaluation on the standard category to rule out obesity (BMI of 30-34.9).
Kranjac admittedly said that the results of the study surprised her. "Usually higher education is associated with all the good things, like higher income, better neighborhoods, greater access to health care and better overall health, and you'd never think education and obesity combined could have this effect on mental health."
"What this means in terms of treatment programs for clinicians is that they need to consider education and obesity and depressive symptoms in combination when considering treatment options. You can't think of these things in isolation because they don't work independently of each other," said Kranjac.
