Study Objective: To study how stress causing factors are responsible for deleterious effects on body physiology of youngsters and also to spread awareness about preventive measures they should adapt to improve their health status.
Design and Setting: A questionnaire survey of college going young male Indian students was undertaken in VIT University, Tamilnadu, India in 2011.
Participants- A total of 205 college going young Indian male students participated in the survey.
Method- Participants completed a survey questionnaire consisting of 3 stress analysing factors- first assessing the sleeping habits, second the eating habits and third for examining the social factors. Height and weight of every student were measured to calculate the BMI. Stress calculation is based on co-relation between stress causing factors and Blood pressure measured using digital blood pressure monitor (Omron®).
Results: The stress was severely caused with less sleep hours, skipping of breakfast and fluctuations in BMI. Though an interesting data is observed for the junk food intake. We observed that people who are not consuming junk foods are having higher percentage of high Blood pressure while students who are consuming the junk foods daily have less percentage of high blood pressure.
Conclusion: An alarming increase in high blood pressure was observed in students with less sleep hours and by skipping breakfast. Hence we conclude that less sleep and skipping breakfast increases the blood pressure while junk food intake is not really affecting the blood pressure.
Keywords: Stress, Sleep, Blood pressure, BMI, Junk food, Hypertension.
Introduction
Stress can be defined as the condition which can disturb the normal physiological and psychological functioning of an individual. Some common symptoms experienced due to stress are anxiety, depression, headaches, mood swing, insomnia and stomach ache [1]. Certain studies found that insomnia symptoms, and nightmares are related to suicidal ideations and nightmares are markers of posttraumatic stress disorder [2]. Short sleep duration decreases glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, and hence is responsible for development of diabetes [3]. Study also reveals that sleep deprivation affect the normal mechanism of blood pressure and increases the risk of hypertension in healthy individual[4]. Research articles have found a association between short sleep duration and increased chance of obesity and higher BMI [5]. Under the stress the amount & type of food chosen differed based on sex, age, type of stressor and restrain level of individual [6] [7]. Food choice is considered as deliberate strategy to modify temperament and mood [8].
Students under stress have shown different dietary habits i.e. they were either dieters or restrained eaters [9]. Stress induced over eating may result in many health related disorders like cardio vascular disease, obesity, cancer, diabetes or sometimes death [10].
Materials and methods
Sample
The survey was conducted in January to April of 2011, in VIT University Vellore, located in, Tamilnadu, India. Students residing in Men's hostel were randomly selected for the survey. The aim of the survey was clearly explained to the students and consent was obtained from them. The students were also told that the participation in the survey was voluntary. They were asked to take a questionnaire. Of the 250 students, 205 returned completed questionnaires.
Method
A survey questionnaire was prepared consisting of 3 stress analysing factors, first assessing the sleeping habits, second the eating habits and third for examining the social factors. Height and weight of every student were measured to calculate the BMI. Digital Blood Pressure Monitor machine (Omron®) was used to monitor the Blood Pressure of each student.
The first group of questions in the questionnaire asked about the sleep pattern such as sleep duration, sleep environment. Based on sleep hours, sleep duration was divided into three categories:
Normal sleep (8-6 hours)
Less sleep (6-4 hours)
Sleep deprived (less than 4 hours)
The second group of questions asked about the eating habits, whether the students prefer junk food from college canteen or the cooked meal at hostel mess. The frequency of eating junk food was divided into 4 categories
A- Students eating junk food once a week.
B- Students eating junk food 2-3 times a week.
C- Students eating junk food daily.
D- Students not eating junk food.
The number of students (who were skipping their breakfast) was also calculated and they were divided into three categories of skipping breakfast as follows:
Students who never skip breakfast.
Students who skip breakfast sometimes.
Students who always skip the breakfast..
The third group of questions asked about the social factors like native place, family background and use of social networking sites.
Result and discussion
Co-relation between sleep hour duration and Blood Pressure values.
Fig:1 Co-relation between sleep hour duration and Blood Pressure values.
Out of total 205 students, the students in normal sleep category (64.4%) had lesser percentage of students with high blood pressure (20%) compared with both less sleep (28.8%) and deprived sleep(6.8%) categories having a higher percentage of students with high Blood Pressure, 25% and 29 % respectively.
Graph-1: Sleep hour duration Vs percentage of students with high BP values.
With the decrease in sleep hours the percentage of high BP in students is showing an increase. In other words sleep deprivation is adversely affecting the BP and hence the risk for BP related diseases are high. This definitely includes stroke, other heart related diseases and anxiety.
Co-relation between junk food eating habit and Blood Pressure.
Fig:2 Co-relation between junk food eating habit and Blood Pressure.
Graph-2: Frequency of eating junk food Vs percentage of students having high BP
We received a very interesting result regarding junk food eaters. The students who were eating junk food daily, only 9% of them showed high BP, while the students who never take junk food, 25% of them were having high BP. Similarly the students who were eating junk food twice or thrice a week, 11% of them showed high BP and those who were taking junk food once a week, 26.39% of them showed high BP.
Co-relation between breakfast intake and blood pressure
Fig:-3 Co-relation between breakfast intake and blood pressure
Among the breakfast skipping students 42% of students showed higher blood pressure, while those who were taking regular breakfast only 25% of them showed high blood pressure. It is clear from the result that high Blood Pressure is due to skipping of breakfast regularly.
We then checked the sleep hours of the individuals who had higher BP, and found that sleep hours are not normal hence it is concluded that skipping breakfast and taking less sleep both factors are responsible for the induction of high BP.
Co-relation between Body Mass Index (BMI) and Blood Pressure (BP).
Fig:-4 Co-relation between Body Mass Index (BMI) and Blood Pressure (BP).
Graph-3: BMI Vs Percentage of students with high BP.
The results showed that with increase in BMI the percentage of students with high BP increased. The percentage of obese students with high BP is 28.5% while the percentage of students with high Blood Pressure having normal BMI is very less (4.4%). Also the percentage of students with lower than normal BMI (8.7%), showed an increase in BP. This clearly shows that hypertension increases with deviation (either increase or decrease) in BMI from its normal value.
Conclusion-
In human life youth is always considered as decisive period because they undergo multiple physiological and psychological changes. Therefore this population can be unique parameter for health promotion and disease prevention programs. Based on our research study it was found that deteriorating cardiovascular health status in student community is rising which is an alarming situation .It also affect our net life span finally reducing our total age as well as health status.
