OBJECTIVES:  High prevalence of diabetes and the comorbidities associated with it is of great public health concern because of its significant adverse effects on general health. Depressive disorders in diabetes patients are of particular interest because they are common and associated with poor health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether adverse health behaviors (poor nutrition, lack of physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption) are predictive of presence of depressive disorders with subjects with diabetes. METHODS: Using data from the U.S. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System 2013, we identified participants who reported having been diagnosed with diabetes by a health professional. A composite health behavior score with four levels for each of the individual health behaviors (nutrition, physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption) was created. The resulting composite health score ranging from 0 to 12 (0 being excellent health behavior score and 12 being the worst) was then grouped into quartiles. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to calculate the odds of having a depressive disorder based on calculated composite health behavior score. RESULTS: The prevalence of depressive disorders in the study population was approximately 28%. Females with the poorest health behavior scores had 3.2 (95% CI: 2.9-3.6) times the odds of having depressive disorders while the males with similar score had OR of 1.6 (95% CI: 1.4-1.8) when compared to reference population of males with poorest health behavior scores after adjusting for other covariates. CONCLUSIONS: Composite health behaviors score was a strong predictor of depressive disorders in patients with diabetes. Encouraging patients with diabetes to improve health behaviors may be helpful in preventing depressive disorders and the poor health outcomes associated with it.  However, because these are cross-sectional data, reverse causation can not be ruled out as an explanation.