Common Mental Health Disorders: A Case Study

The bi-directional association between obesity and common mental health disorders is complex and multi-factorial. Gender, severity of obesity, socioeconomic status and level of education, age and ethnicity have all been suggested as potentially important risk factors that could affect the direction and/or strength of the association between the two conditions. There is also a wide range of behavioural, biological, social and psychological moderating factors that could help explain the relationship. Women appear to be at most risk of obesity and common mental health disorders than men (McCarty et al., 2009). The mental health of obese girls and young women also appears to be more effected than their male counterparts. One suggestion for this
disparity is that more stigma is attached to excessive weight in women than men, with women having to deal with the sociocultural pressures that encourage body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness (Scott et al., 2008).