UK researchers following about 2,000 overweight and obese adults over
four years found that people who lost 5 percent or more of their body
weight had improved physical health but higher rates of depression.
“We know that weight loss is so hard to achieve or maintain, so we
wondered whether part of the explanation might be that the psychological
effects aren’t entirely positive,” said Jane Wardle, the study’s senior
author and a researcher at University College London.
“Our study isn’t definitive because we were comparing people in the
general population who had lost weight with people who hadn’t – it
wasn’t a randomized trial,” Wardle told Reuters Health in an email.
But, she added, the results indicate that although weight loss brings
health benefits, it may be a bit of a psychological struggle.
Wardle noted that many articles and products on weight loss imply that
it will immediately make people feel better, but these findings show
that may not be true.
Overweight and obese adults are often told to lose weight to improve
their health. And according to a 2012 survey, about 60 percent of obese
adults in the U.S. had tried to lose weight during the past year.
For overweight and obese people, weight loss is well known to lower the
risks for a range of physical illnesses. But research on the
psychological benefits has been mixed, Wardle and her coauthors write in
the journal PLOS One.
The
researchers used information for 1,979 overweight and obese men and
women who were part of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a large
population study of U.K. adults age 50 and older.
Nurses measured the height, weight and waist circumference of each
participant, and questionnaires were used to assess mood. In addition,
blood pressure and serum triglycerides were measured to determine
cardiovascular risk.
None of the participants was depressed when the study began.
Since this was an observational study, the researchers didn't give
instructions or advice to lose weight, but they recorded whether or not
the participants said they intended to lose weight.
After four years, 14 percent of the participants lost at least 5
percent of their initial body weight, or about 15 pounds on average.
Another 71 percent had kept their weight stable, and 15 percent had
gained more than 5 percent of their initial weight - about 14 pounds on
average.
The average age was highest in the weight-loss group,
and there were more men and more wealthy participants in the
weight-stable group. People in the weight loss group also tended to have
more weight to lose than their counterparts.
Psychological wellbeing deteriorated in all three groups, but members
of the group that lost weight were 80 percent more likely to be
depressed than the people who maintained their weight.
The study doesn’t prove that losing weight caused depression, the
authors note. It’s possible that depression caused some people to lose
weight or that neither caused the other and that something else the
participants had in common was responsible for the weight loss or the
depression.
But Wardle said
she has some idea why weight loss might be connected with depression.
“In order to lose weight, a person has to eat less than they would like
to, and possibly less than people around them, and losing out on the
pleasure of food is bound to be hard, even if there are compensations in
terms of dropping a dress size and improving your health,” she said.
“Maybe if we were more honest about the fact that it won’t necessarily
make you feel good in the short-term, people would gear themselves up
for the challenge,” Wardle added.
She and her colleagues suggest in their report that more investigation
into the emotional consequences of weight loss is needed.
Dr. Ronald Sha, the medical director of the Duke University Diet and
Fitness Center in Durham, North Carolina, told Reuters Health he is
puzzled by the findings, based on his own experience at his clinic.
“We see people for a more abbreviated time - a matter of weeks, but
virtually everyone who leaves the (Duke Medical Center) leaves here in a
much better mood,” said Sha, who wasn’t involved in the new study.
“Everybody sees considerable improvement in their physical function,
they see considerable improvement in their mood and they all lose
weight.”
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/weight-loss-may-not-improve-mood-study-213816526.html
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1n0O4Hb PLOS One, online August 6, 2014.
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