Relationship Between Overweight, Mental Health and Attitude Among Adolescents: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between overweight, mental health and attitude among adolescents. The study was conducted on a sample of 30 overweight adolescents aged between 13-18 years using purposive sampling method. Overweight can be defined as the condition of extra fat accumulation. According to Body Mass Index (BMI) (as provided by WHO), the weight between 25 to 29.9 kg is regarded as being in the overweight category. The hypothesis of the study was that there will be no significant relationship between overweight and mental health among adolescents. The adolescents were selected based on their BMI index of overweight and assessed using the Mental Health Battery (MHB). MHB measures adolescent’s mental health on four levels: social, psychological, physical, emotion and, BMI was calculated using the BMI formula. The findings reveal that the hypothesis has been accepted i.e., there is no correlation between Overweight and Mental Health as well as Attitude among adolescents. The present work needs to be carried forward as major work has been done on obesity and not on overweight.