The relationship between obesity and suicide ideation among young adults in the United States

Abstract

The prevalence of both obesity and suicide ideation has risen in the last several decades among young adults in the United States (U.S.). Obesity is highly stigmatized in the U.S. and leads to discrimination and societal rejection, which suggests that obesity may increase the risk of suicide ideation. However, no U.S. population-representative studies to date have investigated the relationship between body weight and suicide ideation among young adults. We make this contribution by analyzing data from Wave III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). Our results indicate obesity is not related to suicide ideation among young men or young women and overweight young men have lower odds of suicide ideation than normal weight young men. We speculate that these findings may be attributable to the very high U.S. overweight and obesity prevalence, which has made obesity more common despite stigmatization.