Research Article The Relationship between Body Mass Index and Depression among High School Girls in Ahvaz Ashraf Tashakori, Forough Riahi, and Amin Mohammadpour Department of Psychiatry, Golestan Hospital, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz 6135733118, Iran Correspondence should be addressed to Ashraf Tashakori; tashakori doctor@yahoo.com Received 30 April 2016; Accepted 28 July 2016 Academic Editor: Karen J. Coleman Copyright © 2016 Ashraf Tashakori et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective. Today, obesity and depression are two major illnesses that are on the rise all over the world and threaten human health. Tis research was done to determine the relationship between Body Mass Index (BMI) and depression among Ahvaz high school female students. Method. In a descriptive-analytical study using stratifed random sampling, 400 female high school students in academic year of 2013-2014 were picked and their height and weight were measured. BMI was classifed based on World Health Organization classifcation. To assess the severity of depression, Beck depression questionnaire was used. In order to analyze the data, descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation test were used. Results. In terms of BMI 9% of students were slim, 77% were at an acceptable level, and 14% were overweight. Also, the prevalence of depression was 86.20% major depression and 13.79% moderate depression for obese persons, 10.41% major depression and 70.83% moderate depression for overweight persons, 8.78% major depression and 12.97% moderate depression for normal weight persons, and 9% moderate depression for slim persons. Te relationship between BMI and depression among high school students is positive and signifcant ( < 0.001;  = 0.555). Conclusion. Tere is a positive and signifcant relationship between BMI and the severity of depression among Ahvaz high school female students. 1. Introduction A rising public health problem around the world is obesity, and depression is one of the most common mental disorders [1]. Experts suggest that increasing incidence of depression is related to the high prevalence of obesity [2]. Te perva- siveness of overweight and obesity has constantly increased among all community groups in the past 2-3 decades in America and if this trend goes on by 2030 about 86.3% of adults will be obese or overweight [3]. Obesity is a disease of indolence and results from a prototype of inactivity which is attributive of the automated life [4]. On the other hand depression is a mood disorder that afects the mental health. Given the high prevalence of depression and the signifcant burden of the disease on the individual, health system, and society, adopting appropriate methods to identify risk factors, prevention, treatment, and management of this illness is a must [1, 5–7]. Afecting the mental health in turn disturbs individual’s social and physical health. Depression leads to disruption in job performance and social and interpersonal relations [1]. Depression among high school students is an important issue because it lowers their academic success and achievements [8]. Te efects of obesity on physical health have been well documented, but its consequences for mental health are less certain. Tere are several studies relating to the association of obesity and depression in which some approve [9–15] and others reject [16, 17] the relationship. Tere are generally three types of studies relating depression and obesity. Te frst type is the ones that recognize role of obesity in depression and suggest that self-body image is efective in depression [16, 17]. Te second type is the ones that blame depression in obesity [18–21]. Te third type is the ones that only try to determine the relationship between the two variables [14, 15]. Age and gender have associations with depression and obesity. Onset of depression in adolescence doubles the danger of obesity in comparison with those who do not sufer depression. Adolescent depression due to obesity is more Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Medicine Volume 2016, Article ID 3645493, 5 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/3645493