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Women Who Weigh Themselves Often More Likely To Suffer From Depression

It might behoove you to pay attention to how often you find yourself on a scale. Recent research suggests that the more a woman weighs herself, the more likely she is to be depressed and have lower self-esteem.

A study published in the November/December issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior followed 1,868 adolescents in middle school for 10 years until they were young adults. Fifty-seven percent of the participants were women, the other forty-three percent were men.

Survey answers from the Project Eating and Activity in Teens and Young Adults study were used to gauge how concerned they were with their weight, whether they were depressed, and how often they weighed themselves.

Huffington Post reports that the women who often found themselves on the scale frequently were more likely to have decreased self-esteem and body satisfaction along with depressive symptoms and weight concern. Men who frequently hopped on a scale only reported increased weight concern.

The study’s lead author, Carly Pacanowski from the University of Minnesota, said that women who weighed themselves the most had an 80 percent chance of using unhealthy weight-control methods.

Females who strongly agreed they self-weighed reported engaging in extremely dangerous weight-control behaviors at a rate of 80 percent.

Pacanowski went on to say that while obesity is a concern that eating disorders can often be predicted by body dissatisfaction levels and weight concerns.

Adolescent obesity is a public health concern, but body dissatisfaction and weight concerns are predictors of eating disorders.

Even though an associate was found between mental health and self-weighing, it does not necessarily mean that one causes the other according to Newsmax. It does give you something to think about if you do find yourself obsessing over an ever changing number.

In other health news, research has been done looking into a genetic component of obesity. Scientists believe that certain gene mutations can make it more difficult for a person to recognize when they are full. Genes may also be responsible for why some people crave sweets more than others.

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