The current study examines interactions between BMI and gender in predicting likelihood of lifetime and past-year substance use disorders in a large epidemiologic sample. The National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC; Grant, Moore, & Kaplan, 2003) is the largest psychiatric epidemiology study conducted to date. NESARC data were collected from a representative sample of the Unites States population in 2001 and 2002 with the goal of determining the prevalence of alcohol use and alcohol use disorders and examining physical and emotional disabilities associated with alcohol use. Health indices examined included self-reported height and weight, from which BMI was calculated. Substance use disorders were diagnosed based on criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Sample sizes have limited many prior studies to examining differences between obese and non-obese individuals only or to combining alcohol and other substance use disorders into a single group (e.g., Simon et al., 2006). NESARC’s large sample size allowed for categorization of respondents into normal weight, overweight, and obese groups, for separate analysis of
