Be happier, be thinner

Are you overweight because you’re unhappy… or unhappy because you’re overweight?

Conventional wisdom says it’s the latter – that overweight people have problems with depression and anxiety because they’re so unhappy with their bodies.

But forget conventional wisdom – again – because the latest research finds it’s wrong. The study, published in BMJ, found no evidence that someone in good mental health who packs on the pounds has a higher risk of experiencing depression or any other mood disorder.

On the other hand, thin people who find themselves fighting common mental health disorders are more likely to grow in the gut… and the more episodes they battle, the bigger their bellies.

The researchers looked at four screenings of 4,363 civil servants from the U.K. conducted over a 19-year period. The workers were given mental health assessments as well as height and weight measurements each time.

By the time they got to the fourth screening, subjects who had mental health problems all along were twice as likely to be obese than those with no issues over those 19 years.

So what does this mean for you? Plenty, whether you’re overweight or not.

Right now, many of us are feeling the pinch and it’s not fun. Younger people face losing their jobs, while older folks are being forced to put off retirement or reenter the workforce years after they got their gold watch.

If you find yourself in that boat – or if you worry about it – pay attention to your waistline, even if you’re not in the grips of a full-blown mental health disorder like anxiety or depression.

It’s at times like this that you run the risk of letting yourself slide a little – and you know how it goes after that. Putting the weight on is a lot easier than taking it off.

And if you’re already overweight, you face an even bigger challenge. Not only do you need to lose that weight, but you also need to realize how problems like depression can make it even harder to get back into shape.