ArticleBMC public health2011
Association between Body Mass Index and depression: the "fat and jolly" hypothesis for adolescents girls.
Article in BMC public health, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 71 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Association Between Affect and Adiposity in Childhood and Adolescence: A Systematic Review.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2026Pooled it
- Association between Fruit and Vegetable Consumption and Depression Symptoms in Young People and Adults Aged 15-45: A Systematic Review of Cohort Studies.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Pooled it
- Gender differences in depression in representative national samples: Meta-analyses of diagnoses and symptoms.Psychological bulletin · 2017Pooled it
- A Shelter for the Heart: The Impact of Teacher Quality on Students' Mental Health.Health economics · 2026Article
- Adolescents With Severe Obesity Had an Increased Risk of Reporting Symptoms That Indicated They Had Major Depression.Acta paediatrica (Oslo, Norway : 1992) · 2025Article
- Association Between Weight-Adjusted Waist Index and Depressive Symptoms Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults: Evidence From Two Prospective Longitudinal Cohort Studies.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2025Article
- Socioeconomic differences in adolescent health behaviors and their effect on inequalities in adult depressed mood: findings from a 27-year longitudinal study.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Beyond the positive glow: how school climate inadvertently challenges mental health by modifying the relationship between BMI and depression in adolescents.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Unraveling robust brain-behavior links of depressive complaints through granular network models for understanding heterogeneity.Journal of affective disorders · 2024Article
- Chronic conditions, subjective wellbeing and risky sexual behaviour among adolescents and young adults.European journal of pediatrics · 2023Article
- The prevalence of underweight and obesity in Chinese children and adolescents with major depressive disorder and relationship with suicidal ideation and attempted suicide.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
- Weight changes and the incidence of depressive symptom in the middle-aged and older adults: findings from the Chinese nationwide cohort study.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Developmental trajectories of body mass index since childhood and health-related quality of life in young adulthood: Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2022Article
- Correlates of depression among school going adolescents in the urban area of Patna in eastern India.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2022Article
- Important gender differences in psychosomatic and school-related complaints in relation to adolescent weight status.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Is the Effect of Body Dissatisfaction on Depressive Symptoms Dependent on Weight Status? A Study with Early-to-Middle Adolescents.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2020Article
- Age and gender specific association between obesity and depressive symptoms: a large-scale cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2020Article
- The effects of parental and peer factors on psychiatric symptoms in adolescents with obesity.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2020Article
- A Cross-Sectional Study of the Relationship Between Mental Health Problems and Overweight and Obesity in Adolescents.Frontiers in public health · 2020Article
- Association between depression, anxiety and weight change in young adults.BMC psychiatry · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundResults concerning the association between Body Mass Index (BMI) and depression in adolescence are conflicting, some describing a linear association (increase in BMI with level of depression), some a U-shaped association (both underweight and obesity are associated with high levels of depression), and they mostly concern small samples. The purpose of this study was to describe the association between BMI and depression in a large representative sample of French adolescents.
methodsThe association between BMI and depression, measured on the Adolescent Depression Rating Scale (ADRS), was tested in a French national representative sample of 39542 adolescents aged 17. Self-report data is derived from the 2008 ESCAPAD study, an epidemiological study based on a questionnaire focused on health and drug consumption. We used spline function analysis to describe the association between BMI and depression.
resultsThe association between BMI and depression is significant (p < 0.001) and non-linear for both genders, with no effect of parental working and marital status. For boys, there is U-shaped association. For girls the shape of the association is complex and shows inverted convexity for high levels of BMI. The spline shows higher scores for depression among overweight girls than among obese girls.
conclusionThere is evidence for a gender difference in the association between BMI and depression in adolescents, supporting the need to study boys and girls separately. Overweight adolescent girls are more likely to be depressed than obese adolescent girls, giving support for "fat and jolly" hypothesis not only among older women but also among adolescent girls.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.