Association of overweight and obesity with mental distress in iranian adolescents: the caspian-iii study

Background: excess weight may be associated with mental distress and this relationship varies according to the socio-cultural background of different populations. this study aims to assess the relationship of overweight and obesity with some psychological disorders in a nationally representative sample of iranian adolescents. methods: this nationwide study was conducted in 2009-2010 among 5570 students,aged 10-18 years,living in 27 provinces in iran. data were collected by using the translated and validated questionnaire of the world health organization global school-based health survey. results: data of 5528 students (49.7% girls) were complete for this study. their mean age was 14.7 (2.4) years. overall 7.9% of participants were overweight and 8.8% were obese. 58.7% of students had anxiety,without significant association of overweight (odds ratio [or]: 0.86,95% confidence interval [ci]: 0.68-1.09) and obesity (or: 1.11,95% ci: 0.88-1.40) with an anxiety. nearly 62.6% of students reported to have depression,there was no significant relationship between overweight (or: 1.11,95% ci: 0.86-1.43) obesity and (or: 1.01,95% ci: 0.79-1.29) with the depression. about 49.4% of students had insomnia,without significant association of overweight (or: 1.17,95% ci:,0.91-1.51) and obesity (or: 0.91,95% ci: 0.71-1.17) with the insomnia. conclusions: in iranian adolescents,excess weight did not increase the risk of psychological distress. this finding might be due to the positive attitude of family and peers to fatness in adolescence.