Longitudinal evidence over 2 years of the pandemic shows that poor mental health in people living with obesity may be underestimated

Abstract

It is well-documented that people living with obesity are at greater risk of poorer mental health outcomes. The aim of our study was twofold: First, to examine the longitudinal trajectories of depression and anxiety in people living with obesity over two years across eight waves of a UK national COVID-19 survey (March 2020-March 2022) using smoothing-splines mixed-effects models. Second, to investigate participation effects via a missingness analysis to check whether survey attrition over time was related to participant characteristics. Trajectory models showed that those living with overweight and obesity consistently reported significantly higher rates of anxiety and depression compared to those in normal weight categories over two years. Our missingness analysis revealed that depression and anxiety predicted the likelihood of responding to the survey over time, whereby those reporting higher rates of depression and anxiety were less likely to respond to the survey. Our findings add to the literature surrounding the (long-term) link between living with obesity and poor mental health. Notably, our results suggest that people who have poorer mental health were less likely to participate in the survey. Thus, we conclude that it is likely that longitudinal population survey studies potentially underreport mental health problems over time and therefore the realistic impact of obesity on mental health outcomes may be underestimated.