Tobacco :: Health, Diseases, Depression

Although there have been many studies regarding the negative health risks associated with tobacco, there have also been studies regarding its relation to obesity and depression (Leventhal et al., 2010). It discussed the relationships between tobacco use, obesity and depression by carrying out a population based survey of 41,654 adults (Leventhal et al., 2010). The data illustrated that tobacco use is very common in women with major depression and victims of obesity, in comparison with women who are non-smokers, but are still victims of major depression and obesity (Leventhal et al., 2010). The study will explain the effects on tobacco users. Depression is associated with the cause of obesity and vice-versa. Researchers have developed that the link between major depression and obesity is conditional upon a host of moderators which consists of gender, education, ethnicity, age, and genetics. The link between depression and obesity turned out to be common in females then males (Leventhal et al., 2010). Research by Leventhal et al. (2010) supports that major depression and obesity is associated with each other because depressed individuals engage in unhealthy eating behavior; an example of this would be binge eating or higher caloric intake (Leventhal et al., 2010). People who engage themselves in alternative behavior to cope with depressive symptoms may be less susceptible to the effects of depression and obesity. Leventhal et al. (2010) believes that tobacco is one such behavior because smoking is prevalent to people who are victims of depression. The relationship between major depression and obesity may be strong amongst nonsmokers because they are not using tobacco in order to modulate their depressive states. Leventhal et al. (2010) argued that concurrent tobacco use at any level of severity could diminish the major depression association. However, the alternative use of tobacco at any level of habitual degree could offset major obesity relations according to a substitute addiction framework (Leventhal et al., 2010). Within this experiment, certain groups were examined and they consisted of: two candidates of tobacco and included smoking status, and tobacco dependence that dealt with any tobacco used in the past year. They compared both results, and came up with a conclusion for their experiment. The participants for this experiment were respondents in the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Most of the participants were civilian, non-institutionalized, and residents of the U.S from ages 18 or older. African Americans and Hispanics were oversampled and each group accounted for approximately 20%.