"Depression is common among obese teenagers, but the association between the two may largely be explained by teens' experiences of being shamed, and other psychosocial factors, new research suggests.

'There is a clear statistical association between adolescent obesity and adolescent depression,' study author Dr. Rickard L. Sjoberg, of Uppsala University in Sweden, told Reuters Health.

...Obese teens reported experiencing more symptoms of depression than their normal-weight or overweight peers and had a higher risk of depression, the researchers report in the journal Pediatrics.

...Further, adolescents who reported the highest number of shame experiences were more than 11 times more likely to be depressed than those who reported the lowest number of shame experiences, the report indicates.

The association between obesity and major depression disappeared, however, after the researchers took into consideration the adolescents' gender, parental employment, and parental separation, the report indicates.

Teenagers with unemployed parents and those in families in which the parents were separated were more likely to have depressive symptoms than their peers. In fact, these variables predicted major depression among the study group, the researchers note, and were unrelated to the teens' weight."

(Source:  Charnicia E. Huggins, "Humiliation influences obese teens' depression," Reuters Health, September 7, 2005; http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2005-09-07T132839Z_01_EIC748423_RTRIDST_0_HEALTH-TEEN-DEPRESSION-DC.XML.)

"'I think what something like "Starved" does is sort of normalize eating disorders,' charges Susan S. Bartell, a psychologist in Port Washington, N.Y., who specializes in treating teens, many with eating disorders. 'It may leave impressionable adolescents with the notion that eating disorders are so normal we can joke about them on television. And that's really not the case. Eating disorders are serious, scary and for some they are truly life-threatening.'

Indeed, according to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. There are approximately 10 million females and 1 million males in the U.S. who struggle with eating disorders."

(Source:  Victoria Clayton, "Do TV shows, Web sites fuel eating disorders?" MSNBC, September 6, 2005; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9164550/ .)

Symptoms of psychological distress have multiplied among teenagers during the last quarter century, and adverse changes in family appear to account for the increased psychopathology.   The negative trends in teens' psychological well-being have recently been documented in a study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry by researchers from King's College London and the University of Manchester.  The researchers regard these trends as the probable consequence of weakened family life.

Examining national British data collected between 1974 and 1999, the authors of the new study limn "a substantial increase in adolescent conduct problems ... for both genders."  The researchers also document "substantial increases in high emotional problem scores between 1986 and 1999." The British scholars view these trends as linked, not disparate, remarking that "levels of co-occurrence between conduct problems and other difficulties have increased over time."  

The authors of the new study adduce sobering evidence of "links between [adolescent] conduct problems and later criminality."  "Thirty-seven percent of adolescents with high parent-rated conduct problems scores reported a police arrest by age 30," they note, "compared with 15% of those without marked conduct problems." 

In their concluding analysis of the rising incidence of adolescent psychological problems, the researchers find "strong support for the role of environmental influences on psychosocial development." In particular, the researchers stress the "considerable change in the social and family contexts in which children grow up in many Western societies." This change reflects "rising divorce rates, a greater number of cohabiting couples, and increasing numbers of single parent and step-families."  The researchers also highlight "increasing numbers of dual-earner households and children looked after in day-care facilities of variable quality."  Citing earlier research into the psychological consequences of such family changes, the authors of this new study believe it "certainly plausible that these changes have contributed to rising rates of adolescent difficulties."