5. Unplanned weight loss or weight gain
Eating is one of the activities that trigger more pleasure in the organism, especially certain foods. That is why many depressed patients try to cope with their feelings by eating disproportionately. This emotional eating often leads to weight gain, and it is not necessarily because they eat large portions of food in each meal. Some patients are very anxious and eat small bites of food throughout the day, adding up to a very large volume of food at the end of the day.
The opposite is also true, and some patients with depression would instead refuse to eat, showing a complete apathy to foods they used to enjoy. Thus, they lose weight without making plans and become malnourished and susceptible to infectious disease and other health problems.
