Trends of body fat percentage and body mass index in response to stress among adolescents girl students of humanities, commerce and science streams

Obesity and psychological disorders are very common among every group of individuals. Physical and mental changes may be associated with each other. The present study was conducted on an adolescent group of Punjabi background with a hypothesis that there is a correlation between stress (independent variable) and physical changes of body (dependent variable). The aim of this study was to analyze trends of body fat and body mass index among female adolescents of three different streams and to evaluate the correlation between stress and measures of adiposity.

Cross-sectional research design was used to collect data of 600 female students belonged to Punjabi backgrounds, aged between 15 to17 years by measuring of Body mass index and Percent body fat from four site skin fold methods. Symptoms of stress were measured with the depression anxiety and stress scale (DAS scale).

A significant difference was found in the mean values of all measured variables between adolescents of three streams (<0.05). A positive correlation was found between quantitative score of stress and percent body fat (r = .107, p = .009) but no significant correlation between stress and body mass index (r = .007, p = .863) was reported. This positive correlation of percent body fat and stress score establishes the relationship between measures of psychological distress with adiposity among Punjabi female adolescents.

Above results indicate that there is a need for some interventions to educate adolescent girls about negative effects of stress on the body.