Washington, July 8 (Inditop.com) Beware, even worrying about paying bills could turn you into a blob of fat, according to a new study.
The study is one of the first to examine the link between weight gain and multiple types of stress – job-related demands, difficulty paying bills, strained family ties, depression or anxiety disorder – in the US population.
“Today’s economy is stressing people out, and stress has been linked to heart disease, high blood pressure and increased risk for cancer. This study shows that stress is also linked to weight gain,” said Jason Block, who conducted the study at Harvard University.
Women’s waistlines are affected by more types of stress, according to the study. “In addition to weight gain associated with financial problems or a difficult job, women also added pounds when grappling with strained family relationships and feeling limited by life’s circumstances.”
For men, the numbers on the scale did not go up when facing difficult family relationships or feeling constrained by life circumstances.
Among men, lack of decision authority at work and lack of skill discretion was associated with greater weight gain. Skill discretion can be defined as the ability to learn new skills on the job and to perform interesting job duties.
Overall, this study found that people who reported increased psychological stress gained more weight if they already had higher body mass indexes (BMI), said a Harvard release.
A similar weight-gain pattern was not found among lower-weight people who were dealing with the same types of stress, according to the study.
When coping with life’s stressful periods, individuals may change their eating behaviours, which can lead to changes in weight.
These findings are scheduled to appear in the July 15 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
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