Fifteen-year-old Aarav lives in Delhi, and had all that is required to excel in studies (before/after school, he attended coaching, he studied for 10 hours a day, and did not participate in any outdoor sports). Due to the stress of exams, he ended up developing a reliance on eating more snacks, soft drinks and junk food, which ultimately became an everyday part of his lifestyle and also replaced meals since he studied often into the late hours of the night.
He used food as a coping mechanism to handle his anxiety, as well as his feelings of stress and feeling overwhelmed. He eventually gained over 18 kilograms in the two years since he started school; his weight and height resulted in him being classified as obese based on his Body Mass Index (BMI), elevated blood pressure and a doctor confirming he developed insulin resistance. His doctor told Aarav that his weight gain was a consequence of consuming too many calories, accumulating stress, emotional eating, engaging in insufficient activity and getting too little sleep (WHO, 2024; Sahoo et al., 2015).
Obesity in adolescents in India is one of the most alarming public health problems, with the highest rate. While previously it was predominantly an issue in affluent nations, childhood obesity, as well as teen obesity, has been gradually increasing due to the urbanisation rush, altered lifestyles and readily available calorie-rich and processed foods. A host of factors have been cited that include more screen time, less physical activity, inconsistent diet patterns, competition to get better marks, all of which contribute to the conducive atmosphere where excessive growth is occurring at below-standard weights (WHO, 2024; Gupta et al., 2012).
Read More: The Connection Between Obesity and Mental Health
The Psychological Link Between Stress and Obesity
From a framework beyond biology, the stress and coping theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) offers another important model when discussing adolescent obesity. This theory outlines how one’s appraisals and coping will play a role in how stress affects one’s emotions. When an adolescent experiences chronic stressors such as academic pressure, social comparison, or family pressure, these individuals may cope by engaging in overeating or by limiting their physical activity or screen time to manage their negative emotions; therefore, many adolescents resort to using physical activity and inactive behaviours to cope. Additionally, both of these behaviours may contribute to an obese state or the conditions related to it (Tomiyama, 2019).
Academic Pressure and Emotional Eating: A Hidden Connection
Many Indian teenagers feel great stress due to pressure from parents, competition with peers and their own perceptions of failure surrounding success in exams and academic achievement. Chronic psychological stressors, such as the number of hours spent in tuition or on study habits, activate the HPA axis, leading to an increase in cortisol release from the adrenal glands. Increased levels of cortisol lead to increased appetite, particularly for sweet, salty and fatty foods, and therefore, during times of high levels of stress, there may be an increased likelihood that teens will eat unhealthy snacks (Adam & Epel, 2007).
The theory of Stress and Coping explains emotional eating as a method of emotion-focused coping, where an adolescent eats food, not to remedy the source of their stress, but to momentarily alleviate the unpleasant emotions that they are experiencing (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Food can provide some degree of emotional relief over a period of time; however, it helps develop habitual, unhealthy eating behaviours and leads to excessive caloric consumption (Tomiyama, 2019). In addition, when adolescents repeat the use of food as a coping strategy, they may fuel the cycle of emotion-related distress and unhealthy weight gain, resulting in a greater risk of developing obesity, low self-esteem, anxiety, and/or depression (Sahoo et al., 2015).
Read More: Mindful Eating: A Path to Healthier Relationships with Food
Sedentary Lifestyle and the Digital Generation
Adolescents now live differently from the way they did 10-15 years ago due to changing technologies. Use of the internet for education, cell phones, using social media, gaming and using streaming services has decreased the chances for adolescents to be physically active. Students sit in classrooms and coaching centres or do homework for several hours a day, as well as use different digital devices, so they burn less energy than before while continuing to consume the same amounts of food. In addition to sitting, adolescents tend to eat more frequently or snack (WHO 2024).
In addition to direct effects, stress contributes to the indirect encouragement of sedentary behaviour and in situations of emotional exhaustion, adolescents do not have the motivation to engage in physical activity, as they would see it as requiring a great deal of added exertion. Adolescents will instead engage in activities such as watching videos, flicking through social media, and playing video games as these require much less effort, though at the expense of physical activity, sleep disturbance and increasing advertisement of unhealthy food products to adolescents, which may further enhance adolescent obesity risk. The longest sitting times and most restricted activity levels in adolescents are among the two most significant risk factors for the behaviour of adolescent obesity in India (Gupta et al., 2012; WHO, 2024).
Read More: Obesity Can Develop Several Mental Health Issues
Healthy Coping Strategies to Prevent Adolescent Obesity
We need to improve physical health, as well as the skills to cope psychologically. Some ways to achieve this through prevention are:
- To practice relaxation and mindfulness, deep breathing and stress reduction techniques. This helps to limit stress eating.
- Exercise for 60 minutes per day. Anything can be done in any format, i.e., sports, walking, cycling, swimming, dancing, yoga.
- Eat healthy. Eat more fruits and vegetables, wholegrains, home-cooked food and less processed foods, and fizzy drinks.
- Reduce sedentary passive entertainment (screen time activities) and increase outdoor activities to boost both physical and mental health.
- Limiting passive leisure screen-time activities and encouraging outdoor pursuits for the promotion of both physical health and mental well-being.
- Maintaining adequate amounts of sleep helps prevent changes in hormonal levels that regulate both hunger and appetite.
- Fostering supportive family environments in which parents focus on healthful lifestyles as a priority, as opposed to just focusing on academic success.
- Implementing school-based health programs involving both nutrition education and physical education, and mental health support components.
- Helping adolescents to develop positive coping mechanisms, such as developing problem-solving skills, increasing emotion regulation and learning to utilise social support, so that they will not continue to turn to food as their sole comfort strategy (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; WHO, 2024).
Conclusion
Adolescent obesity in India is determined by more than just consuming too much food. Many factors at play contribute to the rise of adolescent obesity in India, including the many ways in which psychosocial factors (e.g., stress) interact with behavioural patterns that promote obesity (e.g. lack of physical activity, unhealthy eating, etc.).
The theory of stress and coping fundamentally explains how chronic academic stressors and emotional mentalities lead to more adolescents engaging in emotional eating behaviour (i.e., overeating due to stress or emotions) and less physical activity. As a result, the likelihood of developing obesity increases. Realising that obesity is both a psychological and physical health issue, there will be a greater variety of approaches for preventing and treating obesity (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Tomiyama, 2019).
Co-operation among family, school, medical professionals, and government measures will prevent obesity in adolescents. Mental, nutritional, physical and stress management practices in a supportive environment will allow adolescents to adopt other effective stress coping behaviours. If India were to solve both the mental stress which are burdens for the young Indian Generation and lifestyle factors causing adolescent obesity, India would still strive toward decreasing adolescent obesity and developing a healthier future generation.
References +
- Adam, T. C., & Epel, E. S. (2007). Stress, eating and the reward system. Physiology & Behaviour, 91(4), 449–458. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2007.04.011
- Gupta, N., Goel, K., Shah, P., & Misra, A. (2012). Childhood obesity in developing countries: Epidemiology, determinants, and prevention. Endocrine Reviews, 33(1), 48–70. https://doi.org/10.1210/er.2010-0028
- Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer Publishing Company.
- Ng, M., Fleming, T., Robinson, M., Thomson, B., Graetz, N., Margono, C., Mullany, E. C., Biryukov, S., Abbafati, C., Abera, S. F., Abraham, J. P., & Gakidou, E. (2014). Global, regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980–2013: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. The Lancet, 384(9945), 766–781. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60460-8
- Sahoo, K., Sahoo, B., Choudhury, A. K., Sofi, N. Y., Kumar, R., & Bhadoria, A. S. (2015). Childhood obesity: Causes and consequences. Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, 4(2), 187–192. https://doi.org/10.4103/2249-4863.154628
- Tomiyama, A. J. (2019). Stress and obesity. Annual Review of Psychology, 70, 703–718. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-102936
- World Health Organisation. (2024). Obesity and overweight. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight
