Purpose Mental health problems among university students have been reported to be significantly increasing and suggested to be associated with college drop-out. Body dissatisfaction and compulsive exercise are both constructs relevant for mental health problems in general and eating disorders in particular. This study examined associations between body dissatisfaction, compulsive exercise and self-reported symptoms of depression among Swedish university students. Methods Participants (n = 4262) are students in an ongoing cohort study, and data from the baseline assessment were used. Four linear regression models were built to explore the associations between body dissatisfaction, compulsive weight control exercise and depressive symptoms. Results Our findings showed that females reported higher levels of body dissatisfaction than males. Body dissatisfaction and compulsive exercise were associated with self-reported symptoms of depression in this non-clinical population. Results showed that compulsive exercise was negatively associated with reported symptoms of depression, while body dissatisfaction was positively associated with symptoms of depression. Conclusion In line with previous research, there was a gender difference in body dissatisfaction where females displayed higher levels of dissatisfaction than males.  Body dissatisfaction was  positively associated with reported symptoms of depression, suggesting support of previous research indicating body dissatisfaction to increase mental health problems. Compulsive exercise was negatively associated with symptoms of depression suggesting a behavior negatively reinforced, supporting both constructs to be of interest for reported symptoms of depression in a non-clinical population of Swedish university students. Level of evidence III, cohort study. Trial registration http://clinicaltrials.gov/ID: NCT04465435.

Studies investigating differences in mental health problems between self-employed and employed workers have provided contradictory results. Many of the studies utilized scales validated for employed workers, without collecting validity evidence for making comparisons with self-employed. The aim of this study was (1) to collect validity evidence for three different scales assessing depressive symptoms, emotional exhaustion, and sleep disturbances for employed workers, and combinators; and (2) to test if these groups differed. We first conducted approximate measurement invariance analysis and found that all scales were invariant at the scalar level. Self-employed workers had least mental health problems and employed workers had most, but differences were small. Though we found the scales invariant, we do not find them optimal for comparison of means. To be more precise in describing differences between groups, we recommend using clinical cut-offs or scales developed with the specific purpose of assessing mental health problems at work.