Association between depressive and anxious symptoms and overweight in adolescents and its relationship with socioeconomic and demographic factors

Abstract

Introduction: In the middle of numerous studies with mainly focus in the imbalance of energy balance and sedentary lifestyle as causes of obesity, we find still limited availability of effective methods for prevention and treatment of obesity. Thus, more recent studies are trying to associate weight gain with other factors such as mental health, for example, and some are finding positive results.Objective: Investigating the association between depressive and anxious symptoms and overweight and obesity in adolescents from different countries of different continents.Method: We will analyze data from students between 13 and 15 years old removed from the Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS) of the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted in 55 countries from different continents. Outcome and exposure variables will be considered BMI and depression, respectively. Bivariate analysis will be made, in order to verify the relationship between the outcome, the exposure and confounding variables, through prevalence ratios simple and adjusted, with 95% confidence intervals and the respective p values (obtained from the Wald test). A multivariate analysis will also be performed using Poisson regression to estimate the independent contribution of each variable to the chance of being overweight / obese, as proposed by Coutinho et al.