ArticleAmerican journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council2017
Weight, gender, and depressive symptoms in South Korea.
Article in American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 51 citations in OpenAlex.
- Association of diabetes, obesity, and their co-occurrence with suicide ideation in Korean adults using nationally representative data from 2019 to 2021.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Is obesity associated with depression in low- and middle-income countries? Longitudinal evidence from Indonesia.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2025Article
- Obesity, daily life restrictions, and health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic in Korea.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Perceived Familial Financial Insecurity and Obesity Among Korean Adolescents During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Sex-Specific Sarcopenia Prevalence and Risk Factors in the Korean Population: A Cross-Sectional Epidemiological Study.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2024Article
- Weight status in survivors of childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia in South Korea: a retrospective descriptive study.Child health nursing research · 2023Article
- Association between Weight Status and Mental Health among Korean Adolescents: A Nationwide Cross-Sectional Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Weight Stigma in Patients With Obesity and Its Clinical Correlates: A Perspective From an Indian Bariatric Clinic.Cureus · 2022Article
- "We're categorized in these sizes-that's all we are": uncovering the social organization of young women's weight work through media and fashion.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and Morita therapy (MT); comparison of three established psychotherapies and possible common neural mechanisms of psychotherapies.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2022Review
- Trends and Inequalities in Overall and Abdominal Obesity by Sociodemographic Factors in Korean Adults, 1998-2018.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Dose-Response Association of Waist-to-Height Ratio Plus BMI and Risk of Depression: Evidence from the NHANES 05-16.International journal of general medicine · 2021Article
- Why Does Weight Gain Put More Stress on Women?Korean journal of family medicine · 2020Article
- Relationship between sleep and obesity among U.S. and South Korean college students.BMC public health · 2020Article
- Measuring Socioeconomic Inequalities in Obesity among Korean Adults, 1998⁻2015.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Article
- Self-perceptions of body weight status according to age-groups among Korean women: A nationwide population-based survey.PloS one · 2019Article
- René Girard and the Mimetic Nature of Eating Disorders.Culture, medicine and psychiatry · 2018Article
- The Cardiometabolic Burden of Self-Perceived Obesity: A Multilevel Analysis of a Nationally Representative Sample of Korean Adults.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Weight Shame, Social Connection, and Depressive Symptoms in Late Adolescence.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2018Article
- Life satisfaction and happiness associated with depressive symptoms among university students: a cross-sectional study in Korea.Annals of general psychiatry · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesObesity consistently predicts depression risk, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Body concerns are proposed as key. South Korean society is characterized by extremely high levels of explicit weight stigma, possibly the highest globally. Using cross-sectional Korean 2014 National Health Examination Survey (KNHANES) data, we test this proposition in a nationally representative sample of South Korean adults (N = 5,632).
methodsDepressive symptoms (outcome variable), was based on the PHQ-9. Weight status (predictor variable), was based on direct measures of height and weight converted to BMI. Weight concern was self-reported. Mediation analyses tested how weight concern mediated the influence of weight status on depressive symptoms for women and men.
resultsCurrent weight status influenced depressive symptoms in Korean adults, but not always directly. Concerns of being "fat" mediated that relationship. The effect increased significantly as BMI increased within "normal" and overweight/obese categories for women, and in overweight/obese categories for men. Even though women classified as underweight were significantly more depressed than those in other weight categories, there was no similar mediation effect related to weight concerns.
conclusionFor South Koreans, the stress of adhering to social norms and avoiding stigma related to body weight seems to explain the relationship between higher body weight and more depressive symptoms. Women are more vulnerable overall, but men are not immune. This study demonstrates that body concerns help explain why weight predicts depression, and more broadly supports the proposition that widespread weight-related stigma is a potentially major, if unrecognized, driver of population-level health disparities.
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