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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Obesity and depressive symptoms in Chinese elderly | | Author(s) | Zhi Bin Li, Sai Yin Ho, Wai Man Chan |
| Journal title | International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 19, no 1, January 2004 |
| Pages | pp 68-74 |
| Source | http://www.interscience.wiley.com |
| Keywords | Chinese people ; Obesity ; Depression ; Symptoms ; Correlation ; Cross sectional surveys ; Hong Kong. |
| Annotation | Cross-sectional data on depressive symptoms (measured by the Geriatric Depression Scale, GDS) and body mass index (BMI, World Health Organization Asian standard) were obtained from 56,157 older Hong Kong Chinese (aged 65+). Among the 18,750 men and 37,417 women, the prevalence of depressive symptoms was 4.9% and 7.9% respectively. The prevalence of obesity was significantly higher for women than for men (41.6% vs 36.65). Obese men and women were about 20% less likely to suffer from depressive symptoms compared with those of normal weight. This result supports the "jolly fat" hypothesis previously restricted to men, and extends the hypothesis to older women. Chinese traditional culture and positive values towards obesity may be protective against depressive symptoms. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-040303216 A |
| Classmark | TKL: CSA: ENR: CT: 49: 3KB: 7DR |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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