Stigma and the etiology of depression among the obese: An agent-based exploration

Obesity and depression are comorbid more often than chance predicts. However, depression among the obese is more common in settings where obesity is less common. This suggests that body habitus norms and social stigmatization may play a role in the etiology of depression among the obese.

We developed an agent-based social network model to explore mechanisms by which deviance from normative body habitus may contribute to social isolation in the obese. At each of 240 simulated months (20 years), each agent updated its body mass index based on environmental, peer influence, and stochastic factors. At each month, each agent was subject to social ostracization and consequent depression if its body mass index deviated from that of its peers and the network-wide mean. We compared risk of depression as a function of obesity and obesity norms through simulations of a high-obesity context simulating the US state of Mississippi and a low-obesity context simulating the US state of Colorado, then explored the relationship between global obesogenic forces and agent-specific resistance to the forces.

Over 1000 simulations in each context, 25 percent of obese agents in simulated Colorado were ever-depressed as compared to 21 percent in simulated Mississippi, although 10 percent overall were ever-depressed in both settings. High and low levels of resistance to obesogeneity prevented the most depression, whereas medium resistance levels were more depressogenic.

Social stigma and ostracization that occur as a consequence of deviance from body habitus norms may be a plausible mechanism by which weight stigma may influence depression in the obese. Public health interventions targeting individuals rather than obesogenic environments may modify body habitus norms with the unintended consequence of increasing stigma-based social isolation among those who remain obese.