Health & Fitness
CDC: Middle-Aged Women Are the Highest Population of Depressed People
A new CDC report says middle-aged women seem to be the most depressed.
The latest Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report showing that middle-aged women are among the most depressed people in the United States is a shift from previous reports but not surprising to one New York health psychologist.
“Women traditionally have had more depression than men but the middle-aged group is new,” says Jessy Warner-Cohen, PhD, health psychologist at LIJ Medical Center in New Hyde Park. “But it’s not surprising given some of our culture shifts in the past decade or so. So there’s a big shift, for example, in youth, fashion, beauty and glamour and less of a focus on the elderly, their needs, aging and giving more respect to our elders. So it’s not surprising that some of these emotional effects are following.”
Reaching middle age is also a stressful time and can be a depressing time as people make life changes and begin to focus more on the end of their life.
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“We see depression crop up at times when people transition to different parts of their life,” Dr. Warner-Cohen says. “So middle age is a time when people start transitioning out of their work role and more into a retirement or thinking about the end of their lifespan. And that’s when people start ruminating sometimes and thinking about things that have gone right in their life or things that have not gone right in their life and things they want to change. And so realizing that that’s a normal part of the aging process [is important].”
Dr. Warner-Cohen urges middle aged women, and all those who are aging and concerned about depression, to look into more psychological aspects as they also begin to think about more medical tests.
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Some signs of depression that people should watch out for include:
- Losing interest in what you previously loved doing
- An increase in irritability
- Having a hard time getting out of bed
The CDC’s report also found that about 15 percent of people who are impoverished are also depressed.
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