Background & Objective: Today obesity and depression are two important diseases which are growing all over the world and threat the human health. That how much these two affect each other is a major health question. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and depression in female students of Ardabil University of Medical Sciences.

  Method: In a descriptive study 230 female students were selected through classified random sampling and their height and weight were measured. To measure the rate of depression a Beck test, and to analyze the data a descriptive method, and finally to indicate the relationship between BMI and depression Pearson correlation through SPSS15 software were used.

  Results : 40% of the students in the depression test were in the normal level, 29% had mild depression, 24% moderate depression and 7% severe depression. In addition 77% of the students, regarding body mass index were in an acceptance level, 14% were overweight and 9% were underweight. Pearson correlation method showed that there was a positive significant relationship between BMI and depression among female students (p≤ 0.01).

  Conclusion: The prevalence of depression in female students of university is 60% and the prevalence of obesity is 14% and there is positive significant relationship between BMI and depression.