Longitudinal pathways between childhood BMI, body dissatisfaction, and adolescent depression: an observational study using the UK Millenium Cohort Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Globally, more adolescents are having depressive symptoms than in the past. High BMI is a risk factor for depressive symptoms, potentially acting via increased body dissatisfaction. Robust longitudinal evidence of these associations could help to inform preventive interventions, but such evidence remains scarce. We investigated the longitudinal associations between BMI at age 7 years and depressive symptoms at age 14 years (objective 1), BMI at age 7 years and body dissatisfaction at age 11 years (objective 2), and body dissatisfaction at age 11 years and depression at age 14 years (objective 3). We also investigated the extent to which body dissatisfaction mediated the association between BMI and depressive symptoms (objective 4).

Methods

This study used data fro

SUBMITTER: Blundell E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11139652 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature