MARC Record from Library of Congress

LEADER: 03259cam a22003017a 4500
001 2011657266
003 DLC
005 20110819090745.0
007 cr |||||||||||
008 110818s2011 mau sb 000 0 eng
010 $a 2011657266
040 $aDLC$cDLC
050 00 $aHB1
100 1 $aDave, Dhaval.
245 10 $aIsolating the effect of major depression on obesity$h[electronic resource] :$brole of selection bias /$cDhaval M. Dave, Jennifer Tennant, Gregory J. Colman.
260 $aCambridge, MA :$bNational Bureau of Economic Research,$cc2011.
490 1 $aNBER working paper series ;$vworking paper 17068
538 $aSystem requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
538 $aMode of access: World Wide Web.
500 $aTitle from PDF file as viewed on 8/18/2011.
530 $aAlso available in print.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references.
520 3 $a"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. There is suggestive evidence that rates of major depression have risen markedly in the U.S. concurrent with the rise in obesity. The economic burden of depression, about $100 billion annually, is under-estimated if depression has a positive causal impact on obesity. If depression plays a causal role in increasing the prevalence of obesity, then policy interventions aimed at promoting mental health may also have the indirect benefits of promoting a healthy bodyweight. However, virtually the entire existing literature on the connection between the two conditions has examined merely whether they are significantly correlated, sometimes holding constant a limited set of demographic factors. This study utilizes multiple large-scale nationally-representative datasets to assess whether, and the extent to which, the positive association reflects a causal link from major depression to higher BMI and obesity. While contemporaneous effects are considered, the study primarily focuses on the effects of past and lifetime depression to bypass reverse causality and further assess the role of non-random selection on unobservable factors. There are expectedly no significant or substantial effects of current depression on BMI or overweight/obesity, given that BMI is a stock measure that changes relatively slowly over time. Results are also not supportive of a causal interpretation among males. However, among females, estimates indicate that past or lifetime diagnosis of major depression raises the probability of being overweight or obese by about seven percentage points. Results also suggest that this effect appears to plausibly operate through shifts in food consumption and physical activity. We estimate that this higher risk of overweight and obesity among females could potentially add about 10% (or $9.7 billion) to the estimated economic burden of depression"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
700 1 $aTennant, Jennifer R.
700 1 $aColman, Gregory J.
710 2 $aNational Bureau of Economic Research.
830 0 $aWorking paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;$vworking paper no. 17068.
856 40 $uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w17068