Can depression be predicted from sudden changes in appetite and weight in adolescents?
By Debarati Choudhury and Sukant Khurana
Appetite increase and decrease as well as weight gain and loss are listed by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — Fourth Edition (DSM–IV; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) as symptoms of depression for all ages, despite the fact that during childhood and adolescence weight gain and increased appetite are normative and weight loss and appetite decrease are not. Treating increased appetite and weight as indicators of depression in youths may be problematic, as so many physiological and psychological processes affect weight and appetite during this developmental period that the effect of depression on these symptoms may be negligible.
The primary goal of this article (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/22686866/) was to examine depression symptoms in 2307 children and adolescents, assessed via semi-structured clinical interview, to test whether or not changes in appetite and weight provide useful information in the diagnosis of depression or in the assessment of its severity.
3 major results emerged from this study that, in concert with prior investigations, suggest that increased appetite and weight gain should not be treated as indicators of depression in children or adolescents (although weight loss and appetite decrease should).
1. Multidimensional factor analysis and IRT analysis of 19 depression symptoms revealed that weight loss and appetite decrease loaded onto a general depression factor, but weight gain and appetite increase did not; instead, these latter two symptoms represented a separate factor, which related weakly to the general depression factor.
2. Excluding weight gain and increased appetite had virtually no effect on the nature of the general depression factor, nor did it affect the relation of the general depression factor to MDD (major depressive disorder).
3. Different patterns of age and gender differences emerged for the general depression factor versus the specific weight gain/ increased appetite factor. The expected ‘Age by Gender’ interaction emerged, showing that depression increased with age for both boys and girls but more so for girls.
In conclusion, results of the current study (with support from prior investigations) suggest that increased appetite and weight gain should not be treated as indicators of depression in children and adolescents. Importantly, this conclusion does not extend to the opposites of these symptoms, weight loss and decreased appetite, which do seem to be valid indicators of depression during these developmental periods.
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About:
Debarati Choudhury is a student who worked extensively as a researcher with Dr. Khurana’s group on mental health awareness and evaluated seminal work in the field to help laypeople understand the scientific literature on depression.
Dr. Sukant Khurana runs an academic research lab and several tech companies. He is also a known artist, author, and speaker. You can learn more about Sukant at www.brainnart.com or www.dataisnotjustdata.com and if you wish to work on biomedical research, neuroscience, sustainable development, artificial intelligence or data science projects for public good, you can contact him at skgroup.iiserk@gmail.com or by reaching out to him on linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/sukant-khurana-755a2343/.
Here are two small documentaries on Sukant and a TEDx video on his citizen science effort.