Comorbidity of obesity and depression: A longitudinal examination among Mexican American adolescents

Obesity and depression are two significant health problems plaguing Mexican American youth with nearly 20% of Mexican American children and adolescents estimated to be overweight (BMI for age > 95th percentile) and 30% of Mexican American youth reporting regular depressive symptoms. Despite this, very few studies have examined the co-occurrence of depression and obesity among Mexican American youth and none have examined their relations longitudinally. Using a two wave cross-lag model, the study examined a) rates of obesity at time 1 (T1) and time 2 (T2) among Mexican American adolescents, b) the association between T1 body mass index (BMI) and T2 major depressive disorder (MDD) symptoms and b) the association between T1 MDD symptoms and T2 BMI. The sample consisted of 551 Mexican American adolescents (50.4% female) living in a large metropolitan area in the Southwest. Adolescents were assessed at 5th grade (Mean age = 10.42) and 7th grade (M = 12.42). Using structural equation modeling, a preliminary cross-lag analysis indicated that T1 MDD symptoms predicted increases in T2 BMI. In contrast, T1 BMI was not associated with T2 MDD symptoms. These results suggest that depression plays an important role in subsequent weight gain among Mexican American youth. However, future research with more than two time points is needed to be confident about the direction of these relations. For the conference, we plan on furthering our examination to include potential moderators (i.e., adolescent gender, family SES, and nativity-US vs Mexico) of the relations between depression and BMI.