Psycopathology in overweight and obese patients

Introduction Overweight and obesity are considered as a pandemic disease with a worrying prevalence and still growing. According to the World Health Organization, in 2014 the 39% adults were overweight and 13% were obese. Although it is an objective fact that obesity is an abnormal or excessive accumulation of fat detrimental to health, causes that lead a person to be obese are multifactorial and not yet well known. Objective Examine the relationship between psychopathology and obesity. Deepen in this sense, allows us to understand obesity from a broader perspective, where not only the nutritional factors are involved in these patients, but also different "emotional profiles". Methods The emotional aspects of overweight and the obesity study Program of the University Hospital Infanta Leonor attends to these patients from a multi-modal perspective, to offer a multidisciplinary and effective treatment that results in a permanent lost weight. Descriptive data of the first 180 patients are presented. Results A large percentage of patients presented psychopathology, highlighting a 80.9% of patients with depressive symptomatology, a 56.39% with high anxiety trait, a 48.26% with high anxiety state, a 24.4% meet criteria for binge eating disorder, a 11.9% bulimia nervosa and a 17.3% post-traumatic stress disorder. Conclusion Our findings support the association between obesity and psychopathology and, therefore, the conception of obesity as a bio-psycho-social problem requiring a multidisciplinary approach that go beyond the traditional nutritional guidance.