The Influence of Stress on Body Mass Index among Female University Students

Alsultan, Nada Fahad M; Alanazi, Malik Dham; Alshammari, Daham Obaid; Alsayafi, Zahrah  Ali; Alzahrani, Yahya Mohammed; Boholigah, Ayat Abdulnasser; Alnahwi, Kawthar Ali; Nasserullah, Lama Zaki; Nasserullah, Lina Zaki

doi:10.21608/ejhm.2018.14355

The Influence of Stress on Body Mass Index among Female University Students

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Student, King Faisal University

² Student, Arabian Gulf University

10.21608/ejhm.2018.14355

Abstract

Background: The interrelatedness between obesity and psychological problems seems to be twofold, in that clinically meaningful psychological distress might foster weight gain and obesity may lead to psychosocial problems. Stress may contribute to changes in dietary behaviors that lead to weight change, with various effects related to sex baseline body mass index, or cortisol reactivity in response to stress. Objective: To describe the relationship between stress, weight-related health behaviors (e.g., eating behaviors, physical activity, sedentary behavior, sleep, cigarette smoking and binge drinking), and weight status using cross-sectional data from community college students. Methods: This was a community-based cross-sectional study. Data were collected from representative sample of undergraduate female students in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A total of 208 undergraduate female students were included in this study. The study period was from October 2017 to December 2017. Data were collected by means of personal interview with the participants using a predesigned questionnaire which was distributed among students and filled by personal interviewing after a brief introduction or explanation of the idea of the research to the participants . Results: There was a high significant correlation between stress and BW (P= 0.004). We found no relation between BW and academic year, fast food consumption, main meal content, muscular exercise and cause of stress. There was a high significant correlation between BW and number of meals per day (P= 0.000), stress level (P=0.000) and dealing with stress (P=0.017). Conclusion and Recommendations: Factors which were significantly associated with BMI and stress should be further studied to include number of meals per day, stress level and dealing with stress). Interventions among university students should relate actual measured BMI to stress perception of the students in order to target students at risk. Universities should offer individual counselling for at risk students in order to prevent eating disorders, and should offer psychological and stress related counselling, but should also counteract unrealistic body image concerns of students by broad health communication campaigns.

Keywords