Depression among Overweight and Obese Egyptian Females Attending National Nutritional Institute

Background: Both depression and obesity are widely spread problems with major public health implication. According to the WHO in 2014, more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Of these over 600 million were obese. Depression is also a major public health problem globally and will rank the second of the disease burden by 2030. WHO announced that depression is a common illness worldwide, with an estimated 350 million people affected.Objectives: Our goal in this study is to assess depression in overweight and obese Egyptian females.Methods: The study is designed as a case control study included three hundred Egyptian females aged 18-40 years old attending National Nutritional Institute (NNI) either for treatment or for any other reason. The females were divided in to two groups with one hundred and fifty females for each according to the BMI as a case group (BMI !25.00) and a control group (BMI 18.50-24.99). All subjects were assessed for the psychopathology especially depression by using Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II).Results: Showed that there is a relation between overweight and obesity and depression in overweight and obese Egyptian females aged 18-40 years old attending the NNI.Conclusion: Among Egyptian women aged 18-40 years old, depression is insignificantly higher with obesity. Public health approaches to reduce the burden of obesity or depression must be considered.