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Introduction: The purpose of this project was to examine the body mass index (BMI) of psychiatric patients in the county of Vejle, Denmark, to document the frequency of obesity (BMI > 30) in this particular group. Materials and methods: Persons involved in the care and treatment of the patients collected the data, including sex, age and estimated BMI, for 867 psychiatric patients, corresponding to 66% of the patients treated in 2002. Results: The collected data showed that the frequency of obesity in this ordinary population was significantly higher than in the population at large, especially in the case of females between 25 and 55 years of age; 29% of the females had a BMI over 30, compared with 10% in the normal population. The frequency of obesity and overweight in the examined group of mentally ill females is thus shown to be statistically different from that in the Danish female population at large. Overweight psychiatric male patients first manifest after 66 years of age, 19% with obesity as opposed to 9% in the general population. The patients with the highest frequency of obesity are those in contact with the social psychiatric treatment system. In other words, the more chronic and serious the psychiatric illness, the higher the risk of becoming obese. Conclusion: The tendency for psychiatric patients to develop overweight and obesity may be the result of unhealthy eating habits and physically inactivity, made worse by the side effects of medicine.

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