Constant anger makes teenagers fat

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 08 Mar 2004 - 0:00 PDT


If you are a teen and get angry all the time, cannot control your temper and constantly suppress your feelings of anger you are more likely to get or be fat. More likely, that is, than teens who control their anger and generally stay calm.

In this case, weight seems to correlate with the amount and frequency of anger. The more angry you are, the fatter you get. The intensity of the anger is also an influence.

Mr. Mueller, lead researcher, said that teenagers who find it difficult to express their anger healthily tend to become isolated, they isolate themselves from peers. They tend to do less exercise and eat more fatty foods for comfort. These two options, doing less exercise and eating more fatty foods, in combination, will make the teenager put on weight.

Then the cycle begins. The teenager becomes bigger (in the wrong places), gets teased and gets angrier and angrier. Being angry about being overweight is very common among overweight children.

Researchers said that programmes designed to help teenagers lose weight focus solely on the weight rather than the psychological reasons for it.

Mueller says that counsellors should help overweight teenagers learn how to manage their anger. This would help break the cycle of anger to fat to being teased to anger to fatter to being teased...... Mueller says that the teenager needs to learn to ride a jibe or rude comment, not to take it so much to heart.

The team studied one hundred and sixty 14-17 year olds for a period of three years. Their body weight was recorded. Each year they were given a questionnaire. This questionnaire measures how they manage or handle their feelings of anger.

They found that the kids who had anger problems - lost their tempers, suppressed their anger about everything, had poor control over their feelings of anger - were heavier than the others.

The more in control of their feelings and anger the teenagers were the lighter they were (the less they weighed).

Mueller explained these findings at the American Heart Association (AHA) 44th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.

Mueller works at the University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, USA.

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