And on Top of Being Fat and Depressed, They Missed the Gorilla Playing Basketball Too...

Nick Gillespie | July 6, 2006

More cutting-edge research from Seattle, this time courtesy of Google News and the straight-shooting truthtellers at China Daily:

Fat people not more jolly, says study

Fat people are not more jolly, according to a study that found obesity is strongly linked with depression and other mood disorders....

The study of more than 9,000 adults found that mood and anxiety disorders including depression were about 25 per cent more common in the obese people studied than in the non-obese. Substance abuse was an exception obese people were about 25 per cent less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol than slimmer participants.

The results appear in the July issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, being released on Monday. The lead author was Dr Gregory Simon, a researcher with Group Health Co-operative, large non-profit health plan in Seattle....

Whole story here. All of us -- sober or drunk fat or skinny, ape or human buff or bloated -- should be on the lookout for the policy terminus to which this sort of research is likely to lead: even more draconian drunk-driving laws inscrutable federal food pyramids and even more second-rate brand extensions for Morgan Spurlock and more of a War on Booze Fat than already exists.

Comments

Jennifer|7.6.06 @ 10:06AM|#

Ho ho ho.

|7.6.06 @ 10:13AM|#

As the late Dean Wermer might have said, "Fat, drunk, stupid, and depressed is no way to go through life."

Sandy|7.6.06 @ 10:20AM|#

Yeah, but in this study, they found that fat people were less likely to be big boozers or druggies. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Nanny state cage match.

|7.6.06 @ 10:22AM|#

mood and anxiety disorders including depression were about 25 per cent more common in the obese people studied than in the non-obese.

obese people were about 25 per cent less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol than slimmer participants.

There's your story. Drug and alcohol abuse cure mood and anxiety disorders!

Not that I didn't already believe that.

|7.6.06 @ 10:39AM|#

obese people were about 25 per cent less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol than slimmer participants

This has nothing to do with the fact that drugs make people thinner. Are people willfully stupid or what?

Meth is popular for dieting because it increases metabolism and supresses apetite. Therefore, fewer fat people will be on meth because if they were addicted to meth, they would no longer be fat.

This is true for other drugs, but I won't use every example.

God Dammit!

|7.6.06 @ 10:56AM|#

Wouldn't you be depressed if you couldn't find your prick without a map?

Seriously, maybe fat people could have a chance at jollyness if society wasn't always making feel inferior for being fat. Maybe depressed people are prone to eat more and exercise less, thus gaining weight. Or maybe HFCS and trans-fats are downers. :)

|7.6.06 @ 10:56AM|#

Do people get agnst because they're fat or get fat because of their angst? My guess is the latter. The drop in substance abuse is easily explained by a tendency to try to quell their anxiety with food instead of booze or other drugs.

My thesis: They have the causality ass-backwards.

|7.6.06 @ 11:00AM|#

But I am assuming at this point that they are proposing that these people are miserable ~because~ they're fat. Would that be too much of a leap of faith? Stick it to me if I am wrong.

|7.6.06 @ 11:14AM|#

"They have the causality ass-backwards."

Never!

We're talking about serious science, here.

|7.6.06 @ 12:53PM|#

M'
Why can't it be both? In fact, I'm almost certain that it is both.
BTW, it'll be 22 years since I drank or did drugs this week.
*reaches for a cheeseburger*

|7.6.06 @ 12:57PM|#

That's a helluva long week. You sure you're not dosed?