Thanks!
Answer:
A good question. I think living alone may be one of the causes. But it has a lot more to do to with your social life. If you live alone, don't get out much and have few colleagues that you spend time with outside of work, you're more likely to fall into depression. Though joint families may seem like a better situation, I recently got a job near home and moved back in with my family. That has been more depressing as a whole, than living alone. But that could also have something to do with my situation specifically, considering I am a very social person. The internet also encourages people to spend more time at their computer, than spending time out experiencing things, so this could also be a factor in the equation. Plus, life has been simplified extremely in western civilization, to the point that if our lives aren't what we expected them to be, we get depressed and have a self-pity party. It's such a broad topic that what I've said barely scratches the surface. Further determination would be derived from individually analyzing a specific situation and ruling out contributing factors from there. I hope that helped a little.
Depression is caused by many factors.The one you listed could be a cause to certain individules.Self esteem is probable the biggest cause created by many different factors like peer pressure.
Not really- it's more what people eat these days (crap, basically). People don't seem to be able to grasp the idea that eating crap makes them feel like crap. The specific amino acids that our brains manufacture transmitters from are frequently not supplied by our modern diet.
Even if you do manage to eat healthy meals, overharvesting of fields resulting in nutrient depleted soils, fruits and vegetables not allowed to fully ripen on the vine, and over-processing of foods have all combined over the last century to rob our diets of many life-giving nutrients.
Where you have joint families, you usually have someone who cooks for the family, especially if it's a mother/grandmother.
It is possible. However, for me it has been death of loved ones, a very long abusive relationship, and having no real support system. I did really well for a while. Then it all came crumbling down. Now I am working on rebuilding my life. I do think the more people you have to talk to, the better. Especially, if you can talk about other things and do different activities. Although it is nice to be able to talk about our problems. It gets old with a lot of people. It can also keep you down.