Associations between waist circumference and depressive disorders

BACKGROUND: Previous research has suggested that abdominal obesity and mental disorders are associated. This paper was initiated to investigate associations between unfavourable waist circumference (WC) and mental disorders in a representative sample of German adults. METHODS: 4181 individuals (aged 18-65 years) took part in a physical examination (including measurement of body weight and WC) and a structured psychological interview (M-CIDI) to evaluate mental disorders. RESULTS: An unfavourable WC (males: 26.9%; females: 31.3%) was highly prevalent. However, unfavourable WC and mental disorders were not associated, neither with regard to the prevalence of any mental disorder nor regarding in particular depressive disorders. Moreover, even middle-aged depressive women that have often been assumed to be at high risk of increased visceral fat did not show more unfavourable WCs than their non-depressed, female counterparts. LIMITATIONS: The main limitation is that the co-occurrence of mental disorders and obesity was recorded but not, if obesity was related to the onset of mental problems. CONCLUSION: From an epidemiologic perspective, it is not possible to prove associations between WC and mental disorders. Patients with unfavourable waist circumferences do not show a higher prevalence of depressive disorders.