Association between Actual or Perceptional Weight Status and Mental Health Issues in Adolescents in Korea

Hye-Shin Kim; Jun-Hwan Jang; Keun-Mi Lee; Seung-Pil Jung; Shin-Ho Keum

doi:10.15384/kjhp.2015.15.3.129

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Kim, Jang, Lee, Jung, and Keum: Association between Actual or Perceptional Weight Status and Mental Health Issues in Adolescents in Korea

Original Article

Korean J Health Promot 2015;15(3):129-135.

Published online: 19 December 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15384/kjhp.2015.15.3.129

Association between Actual or Perceptional Weight Status and Mental Health Issues in Adolescents in Korea

Hye-Shin Kim, Jun-Hwan Jang, Keun-Mi Lee, Seung-Pil Jung, Shin-Ho Keum

Department of Family Medicine, Yeungnam University Medical Center, Yeungnam University College of Medicine, Daegu, Korea

Corresponding author：Seung-Pil Jung, MD, PhD Department of Family Medicine, Yeungnam University Medical Center, Yeungnam University College of Medicine, 170 Hyeonchung-ro, Nam-gu, Daegu 42415, Korea Tel: +82-53-620-3542, Fax: +82-53-654-2413 E-mail: spjung@yu.ac.kr

Received 9 February 2015 Accepted 2 July 2015

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Background

Mental health issues in adolescents have recently emerged as a social concern. Previous studies reported that there was a relationship between body image perception and mental health. The purpose of this study was to determine the correlations between actual or perceptional weight status and mental health issues in adolescents in Korea.

Methods

Data was based on the 5th National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Data (2010-2012). The subjects were 1989 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years. Depending on the actual or perceptional weight status, participants were divided into several groups. Mental health indicators included experiencing stress, depressed mood and suicidal ideation.

Results

The multiple logistic regression analysis was conducted controlling for age, abdominal obesity, smoking and alcohol use, potency of exercises, and household income. Although this study did not find a correlation between actual weight status and mental health variables, it did find that girls who perceived themselves as overweight were more likely to experience stress (odds ratio, 2.24; 95% CI, 1.41-3.56) and depressed mood (odds ratio, 1.91; 95% CI, 1.01-3.62).

Conclusions

Adolescent females in Korea who perceived themselves as overweight experienced significantly more stress and depressed mood.

Keywords: Adolescent, Mental health, Weight perception

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Figure 1.

This graph illustrates the association between the self-perceptional weight status and mental health problem. Values are presented as percentage. P-value was calculated by chi-square test (P=0.049).

Table 1.

Characteristics of subjects^a

	Mental health problem		P
	No (unweighted n=1,325)	Yes (unweighted n=664)
	% (SD of %)	% (SD of %)
Sex			<0.001^b
Male	59.1 (1.6)	46.4 (2.2)
Female	40.9 (1.6)	53.6 (2.2)
Age, y	15.0±0.1	15.3±0.1	0.002^c
Overweight^d			0.185^b
Yes	17.0 (1.3)	20.2 (1.9)
No	83.0 (1.3)	79.8 (1.9)
Abdominal obesity^e			0.151^b
Yes	8.1 (0.9)	10.6 (1.5)
No	91.9 (0.9)	89.4 (1.5)
Smoking			0.084^b
Yes	18.4 (1.4)	22.4 (2.0)
No	81.6 (1.4)	77.6 (2.0)
Alcohol use			<0.001^b
Yes	24.7 (1.6)	37.4 (2.4)
No	75.3 (1.6)	62.6 (2.4)
METs			0.257^b
<600	23.6 (1.5)	20.3 (1.8)
600-3,000	51.4 (1.6)	52.0 (2.2)
>3,000	25.0 (1.4)	27.7 (2.1)
Try to adjust weight			<0.001^b
Efforts for reducing weight	33.1 (1.6)	47.7 (2.5)
Efforts for maintaining weight	18.1 (1.4)	14.2 (1.7)
Efforts for increasing weight	11.9 (1.1)	11.7 (1.5)
No efforts	36.9 (1.6)	26.5 (2.0)
Income^f	15.1 (1.5)	16.5 (2.1)	0.548^b

Abbreviations: SD, standard deviations; METs, metabolic equivalents.

^a Values are presented as percentage (SD) or mean±SD.

^b Calculated by chi-square test.

^c Calculated by t-test.

^d Defined as overweight: body mass index (BMI) ≥85% in 2007 Korean National Growth Charts.

^e Defined as abdominal obesity: Waist circumference ≥90% in 2007 Korean National Growth Charts.

^f Defined as household income level ≤25%.

Table 2.

Associations between mental health indicators and weight status^a

	Actual body weight						Perceptional body weight
	Male			Female			Male			Female
	Average and below	Overweight	P^b	Average and below	Overweight	P^b	Average and below	Overweight	P^b	Average and below	Overweight	P^b
Stress	22.8	20.9	0.613	27.7	38.5	0.010	22.0	23.5	0.676	24.6	38.8	<0.001
Depressed mood	9.1	6.7	0.308	12.1	15.9	0.340	9.1	7.8	0.571	10.3	17.3	0.013
Suicidal ideation	8.4	10.4	0.438	18.4	25.5	0.119	7.9	10.8	0.219	16.8	25.0	0.019

^a Values are presented as percentage.

^b Calculated by chi-square test.

Table 3.

Risk for mental health issues according to weight status^a

	Stress	Depressive mood	Suicidal ideation
Actual overweight
Male	0.81^b (0.42-1.57)^c	1.04^b (0.36-2.99)^c	1.35^b (0.49-3.69)^c
Female	1.84^b (1.00-3.40)^c	1.26^b (0.48-3.30)^c	1.12^b (0.56-2.22)^c
Perceptional overweight
Male	1.37^b (0.80-2.36)^c	1.36^b (0.57-3.27)^c	1.99^b (0.91-4.32)^c
Female	2.24^b (1.41-3.56)^c	1.91^b (1.01-3.62)^c	1.41^b (0.83-2.38)^c

^a A reference was average and below weight group; Adjusted for age, abdominal obesity, smoking, alcohol use, potency of exercise, household income.

^b Calculated by multiple logistic regression analysis.

^c 95% confidence interval.

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