To study the influence of stress level with obesity in medical students of India

Stress and Obesity are two highly prevalent conditions present in the society, incidence of which are escalating worldwide. Medical education is taxing and tends to bring psychological stress. Eating has been recognized as a coping mechanisms for dealing with emotions and alleviating stress. There is a vicious cycle of stress-obesity-stigma-stress. To study the prevalence of stress levels and obesity in the medical studentsA cross-sectional study was conducted among medical students of age group 18-30 yrs of Dr. D.Y. University, School of Medicine, Nerul, India. After the approval of the Institutional Ethical Committee, data was collected from 500 students by using a validated, self-administered questionnaire. Utmost care was taken to maintain the privacy and confidentiality. Waiver consent was taken from students who had participated voluntarily in the study. The data collected was coded and entered in Microsoft Excel and analyzed using SPSS version 17.0 software. Descriptive statistics was used for data analysis and the data was represented in the form of percentages, mean.The prevalence of overweight and obesity in medical students was found to be 36.8 % (184) and 11.1 % (55) respectively. Prevalence of overweight and obesity was comparatively higher in males 48.3% and 11.5% than in females 30.1% and 10.6%. 45.6% (228) study participants perceived their stress level to be high and 30.8% (154) as medium. Among the study participants who perceives their stress level as high (n=228), 39.04% (89) were overweight and 18.86% (43) were obese. Developing innovative and effective strategies for managing stress in medical students is the need of the hour. Aggressive management can delay the onset and progression of obesity, and prevent complications.