Between your posts and Roar of Wolverines, I can't help but reread and search recent documents that still seem lacklustre by comparison.

Miss you JS
and I hope Roar of Wolverine still lives and thrives,

Thanks, Roger

There are many contributing factors to depression, which I won't attempt to disentangle.  But it's interesting that being fat is apparently one of them.

As far as Juggalos, I've got sympathy for misfits who get together to celebrate their misfit-ness.  Frankly, I'd rather hang around freaks than hipsters, because I don't enjoy the self-consciousness necessary to care so much about looking like I don't care.  And if you've made it out of your 20s without doing a bunch of things you'd rather not be reminded of, you've wasted a lot of opportunities.

JS

Being fat probably contributes to being depressed but I don't think it is being fat per se but just in general "being very unattractive," if you are skinny and look like crap there is a good chance you will be somewhat depressed too.

I believe weight gain is a known side effect of SSRIs, among others.

Paul:

Exactly.  Humans are supposed to be outside.

JS

Nor me ... I've never been in a gym. Now that I am taking the rest of my life seriously, I don't think I ever will - I have nature, I have wide open spaces right there on my doorstep. My playground 🙂

Funnily enough, the houses on our road are very cheap by comparison. We have a small cluster of former industrial dwellings in our hamlet and a few larger houses.

Nature is the key. Get out into nature to walk, run, climb ... be challenged. Push outside your own boundaries and see where it goes!

From a very sedentary decade through my 30s where I have been heard to say, "I hate being alive!", since learning to live I have been heard to say, "I love being alive! I'm going for a walk!" and coming back full of life, vigour and colour ... even when it is lashing down with rain.

That's an entirely plausible contribution to the effect!  There are also the known hormonal effects of having lots of fat mass.  It's difficult to disentangle causality in such a big, complex feedback loop.

JS

PS: Kit's blog is engrevo.com.

1. Poor diet leads to obesity.
2. Obesity leads to desires for losing weight.
3. Desires for losing weight lead to low-fat diets (FDA Approved!).
4. Low-fat diets lead to depression.

i prefer the term "delicious"

Obesity and depression are strongly linked. (The quoted study can be found here.)

"Obesity, Luppino and colleagues found, increases the risk of depression in initially non-depressed individuals by 55 percent and depression increases the risk of obesity in initially normal-weight individuals by 58 percent."
[...]
"Nearly one out of four cases of obesity is associated with a mood or anxiety disorder."
[...]
Being obese, Luppino told Reuters Health, not only increases the risk of depression, but is more likely to fuel the onset of clinical depression, rather than merely depressive symptoms.

Executive summary: being fat makes you depressed, and being depressed makes you…