Obesity is a risk factor for anxiety and depression. Obesity is also a risk factor for severe COVID-19 disease and therefore may have contributed to adverse mental health outcomes in this vulnerable population during the COVID-19 pandemic. We compare the trajectory of mental health outcomes of people with obesity with normal-weight people before and during the COVID-19 pandemic using nationally representative individual-level longitudinal data from the National Health Interview Survey and Difference-in-Difference regressions. Our results indicate that severe anxiety increased by 2.75 (95% CI: 0.0056–0.0494; p-value 0.014) percentage points, representing a 31.3% relative increase, and anxiety-related prescription drug usage increased by 2.75 (95% CI: 0.0076–0.0473; p-value<0.01) percentage points, representing a 19.2% relative increase among people with obesity, compared to normal-weight people. We conclude that people with obesity experienced an increase in the incidence of severe anxiety and anxiety-related prescription drug usage during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was not observed among normal-weight individuals. Furthermore, women, less-educated, and rural residents with obesity disproportionately bore the burden of the pandemic.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 大流行对肥胖者心理健康的影响

肥胖是焦虑和抑郁的危险因素。肥胖也是严重 COVID-19 疾病的一个危险因素，因此可能在 COVID-19 大流行期间导致这一弱势群体产生不良的心理健康结果。我们使用来自全国健康访谈调查和双重差分回归的具有全国代表性的个人水平纵向数据，比较了 COVID-19 大流行之前和期间肥胖人群与正常体重人群的心理健康结果轨迹。我们的结果表明，严重焦虑增加了 2.75 个百分点（95% CI：0.0056–0.0494； p值 0.014），相对增加了 31.3%，与焦虑相关的处方药使用量增加了 2.75 个百分点（95% CI：0.0076– 0.0473；p值<0.01）个百分点，与正常体重人群相比，肥胖人群相对增加了19.2%。我们的结论是，在 COVID-19 大流行期间，肥胖人群的严重焦虑和与焦虑相关的处方药使用发生率有所增加，而在正常体重的个体中并未观察到这种情况。此外，受教育程度较低的妇女和肥胖的农村居民不成比例地承受着这一流行病的负担。