References
Research roundup
Abstract
In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles are presented. The aim is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.
This research aimed to determine whether high body mass index (BMI) in children may contribute to depression in adolescence, potentially as a result of body dissatisfaction. In this study, Blundell et al (2024) note that the proportion of adolescents with symptoms related to depression has increased over the last two decades and that high BMI is a known risk factor for depressive symptoms.
The authors examined the longitudinal associations between BMI at age 7 years, body dissatisfaction at age 11 years, and depression at age 14 years. The Millennium Cohort Study was used to extract the data of a representative cohort of children from the general population in the UK, who were born between 1 September 2000 and 11 January 2002 (n=13 135). The researchers analysed the following four objectives:
The sample was roughly equal in terms of the proportion of boys (n=6624; 50.4%) and girls (n=6511; 49.6%) participants. At baseline, the mean age of participants was 7.2 years. For objectives 1 and 2, the researchers found that an increase in BMI at age 7 years was associated with greater body dissatisfaction at age 11 years and greater depressive symptoms at age 14 years. For objective 3, greater body dissatisfaction at age 11 years was also associated with greater depressive symptoms at age 14 years.
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