Stressed and Sedentary: A Descriptive Analysis of Health Consciousness and Barriers to Well-being Among Research Scholars

INTRODUCTION

Maintaining good health is essential for everyone. The condition of complete physical, mental, and social well-being is defined as health. According to the World Health Organization, health encompasses not merely the absence of disease but a state of holistic well-being. Research has shown that prolonged engagement in unhealthy practices, such as poor diet, low physical activity, and non-compliance with preventive health guidelines, is a major contributor to poor physical health outcomes later in life.¹ Obesity, promoted by improper eating and lack of physical exercise, is a key contributor to diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic health issues.² Among research scholars and young individuals, maintaining health-related behaviors becomes particularly challenging. The transition into doctoral studies brings unique stressors, including academic pressure, financial constraints, irregular schedules, and social isolation, all of which can negatively influence health behaviours.³ Despite being highly educated and presumably aware of health-related issues, research scholars often struggle to translate this knowledge into consistent healthy behaviors.

Health consciousness refers to the degree to which an individual cares about their health and actively engages in health-promoting behaviours.⁴ Health-conscious people are more likely to establish health-related goals and demonstrate motivation to engage in healthy behaviors. Health consciousness has been identified as a particularly important psychographic variable that predicts various health attitudes and behaviours.⁵ As a psychological state, health consciousness encompasses several dimensions, including health knowledge, health awareness, health beliefs, and health behaviors. The CoronaVIrus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic significantly heightened awareness of personal health, prompting individuals to recognize the critical importance of maintaining physical and mental well-being.⁶ During this period, health behaviors, including exercise, frequently occurred within home environments due to movement restrictions. Studies have demonstrated that regular exercise improves both physical and mental health, boosts immunity, slows the aging process, reduces fat accumulation, and enhances cardiovascular function.⁷

Health knowledge represents a theoretical construct that includes detailed information about etiology, prevalence, risk factors, prevention, transmission, symptomatology, disease treatment, health services, and patient rights.⁸ It encompasses facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education, as well as theoretical or practical understanding of health-related subjects.⁹ Mental health knowledge includes the ability to recognize mental health issues, understand risk factors and causes, know about available professional treatments, maintain attitudes that encourage recognition, and engage in appropriate help-seeking behaviors.

Health awareness is the knowledge of various health concerns, symptoms, and treatment options. It includes general health knowledge, healthcare services, health demands, diseases, and preventative measures. Knowing the importance of frequent health assessments is one of the most fundamental strategies to maintain health. A healthy physique is crucial for personal growth, and regular check-ups help individuals monitor their health. Mindful eating involves paying attention to food purposefully, moment by moment, without judgment.¹⁰ It is a culinary philosophy that emphasizes sensuous awareness and experience of food, focusing on being fully present during the dining experience rather than counting calories or macronutrients. Mindfulness principles include non-judging, patience, beginner’s mind, trust, non-striving, acceptance, and letting go. Mindful eating begins with initial food-related thoughts and continues through the final mouthful, until its consequences are experienced. The World Health Organization defines physical activity as any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure.¹¹ This includes movement during leisure time, for transportation, or as part of work. Both moderate and vigorous-intensity physical activity improve health. Regular physical activity aids in preventing and managing non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and various cancers. It also helps prevent hypertension, maintain a healthy body weight, and enhance mental health, quality of life, and overall well-being.

Perceived stress refers to an individual’s feelings or thoughts about how stressed they are at a certain point in time or throughout a specific period.¹² Common causes include major life transitions, financial issues, and health concerns. Perceived stress encompasses feelings about life’s unpredictability and uncontrollability, the frequency of dealing with bothersome troubles, the number of life changes, and confidence in coping abilities. It does not assess specific stressful events but rather how individuals perceive the general stressfulness of their lives and their capacity to cope. Eating behavior is influenced by complex interactions of physiologic, psychological, social, and genetic variables that affect meal timing, food quantity, food choice, and food selection.¹³ Normal eating involves considering meal selection to obtain nutritious food while not being overly restrictive. It means allowing oneself to eat when pleased, unhappy, bored, or simply because it feels good.

While numerous studies have explored health consciousness and related behaviors in various populations, there is limited research specifically focusing on research scholars. This vulnerable population faces unique challenges that may influence their health behaviors, including intense academic pressure, irregular schedules, and high stress levels. Previous studies have primarily focused on undergraduate students or general young adult populations. The current study addresses this gap by providing a descriptive mapping of health consciousness, specifically among PhD research scholars, summarizing the frequency of psychological variables (including mindful eating practices, physical activity levels, perceived stress, and eating behaviors), documenting the self-reported barriers to health consciousness, and identifying barriers to healthy behavior maintenance in this population.

MATERIAL & METHODS

RESULTS

Demographic characteristics

The study included 104 first-year PhD scholars from VIT University. The majority of participants (74%, n=77) were in the 21-30 years age group, followed by 23.1% (n=24) in the 31-40 years age group, and 2.9% (n=3) aged 41 years and above. The gender distribution showed 69.2% females (n=72) and 30.8% males (n=32), as shown in Figure 1.

Close

Figure 1:

Age distribution of research scholars (n = 104)

Export to PPT

Mindful eating practices

Regarding mindful eating practices, responses were distributed as follows: 27.9% (n=29) maintained a neutral stance; 24% (n=25) disagreed with practicing mindful eating; 23.1% (n=24) agreed; 13.5% (n=14) strongly disagreed; and only 11.5% (n=12) strongly agreed. The relatively low proportion of participants who consistently practiced mindful eating (11.5% strongly agreed) and the high neutral/disagreement responses (65.4% combined) indicate that most research scholars do not regularly engage in mindful eating behaviors despite potential awareness of its benefits [Figure 2].

Close

Figure 2:

Mindful eating practices among research scholars (n=104)

Export to PPT

Qualitative insights for improving scholar well-being

Analysis of open-ended responses revealed three core themes for improving overall well-being among research scholars [Table 5]. Individual regulation strategies included implementation of mindful eating, consistent sleep hygiene, and meal planning. Coping mechanisms identified by scholars included yoga, meditation, and the use of auditory stimuli such as music or podcasts for stress mitigation. Environmental adaptation strategies focused on managing family-academic balance and seeking healthier campus food alternatives. These qualitative insights provide valuable direction for developing targeted interventions tailored to the specific needs and constraints of the research scholar population.

Table 5: Qualitative themes for improving scholar well-being

Core theme	Representative strategies identified by scholars
Individual regulation	Implementation of mindful eating, consistent sleep hygiene, and meal planning.
Coping mechanisms	Use of yoga, meditation, and auditory stimuli (music/podcasts) for stress mitigation.
Environmental adaptation	Managing family-academic balance and seeking healthier campus food alternatives.

As illustrated in Figure 3, a descriptive framework was used to categorize the variables examined. Analysis was limited to frequency distributions and percentages to map the prevalence of these behaviors, rather than to infer causality.

Close

Figure 3:

Visual summary of the findings.

Export to PPT

DISCUSSION

This study explored health consciousness and related behaviors among first-year PhD research scholars at VIT University, revealing a complex picture in which, despite knowledge and awareness of health, research scholars face significant challenges in maintaining healthy behaviors. Our findings indicate that while a majority of participants demonstrated some level of health consciousness, substantial proportions showed suboptimal engagement with health-promoting behaviors, preventive health services, and regular physical activity. These results align with previous research showing that knowledge alone does not guarantee healthy behavior, and the gap between knowledge and practice may be explained by competing priorities where academic demands take precedence over personal health maintenance.¹⁴ A study by Cena et al.¹⁵ on health-related behaviors among university students across seven countries found similar patterns, with students from certain regions exhibiting unhealthier habits, including higher smoking prevalence, breakfast skipping, and reduced sleep duration. In contrast, countries with healthier lifestyles, such as Italy and Spain, showed higher daily breakfast consumption, less smoking, and longer sleep duration. These findings suggest that environmental and cultural factors, alongside individual choices, significantly influence health behaviors.

The identification of time constraints as the primary barrier to healthy eating is consistent with findings from Sogari et al.¹⁶ who explored barriers and enablers to healthy eating among US college students and found that time constraints, along with convenience of high-calorie foods and stress, were major barriers to maintaining healthy eating patterns. The demanding nature of doctoral research, including extensive reading, data collection, analysis, writing, and teaching responsibilities, leaves little time for meal planning and preparation. The academic structure and expectations placed on research scholars create an environment in which quick, convenient food options become necessary rather than preferred, and the confluence of multiple barriers undermines healthy eating intentions despite awareness and knowledge. This finding has important implications for institutional policies and support systems, suggesting the need for accessible, healthy food options within campus environments and flexible scheduling that allows adequate time for health maintenance. The low engagement with preventive health behaviors, particularly regular health check-ups and BMI monitoring, reveals significant gaps in health maintenance patterns that are concerning for a young adult population that should be establishing lifelong health behaviors. Regular health monitoring serves multiple purposes, including early detection of health issues, tracking of health parameters over time, and reinforcement of health consciousness. Neglecting such behaviors during the doctoral period may set patterns that persist throughout professional life, potentially delaying the detection of health issues.¹

The high prevalence of stress eating aligns with research demonstrating that stress is a significant predictor of unhealthy eating behaviours,¹⁷ and during stressful periods, individuals often turn to food for comfort, typically choosing high-calorie, palatable foods that provide temporary relief but contribute to poor long-term health outcomes. Research scholars face unique stressors, including publication pressure, funding concerns, advisor relationships, career uncertainty, and work-life balance challenges. The use of food as a coping mechanism may provide short-term emotional regulation but fails to address underlying stressors and can contribute to the development of unhealthy eating patterns. This finding highlights the need for comprehensive stress-management interventions specifically designed for the research-scholar population. The predominance of negative emotions associated with unhealthy eating suggests considerable emotional distress related to food choices, indicating that participants are aware of engaging in unhealthy behaviors and experience negative emotions as a consequence, yet feel unable to make healthier choices consistently. Espinosa and Kadic-Maglajlic¹⁸ found that emotional intelligence was significantly related to health behaviors, with health consciousness mediating this association, and their study demonstrated that individuals with higher emotional intelligence were better able to regulate emotions and make health-promoting choices. The negative emotional responses found in our study may indicate difficulty in emotional regulation or lack of effective coping strategies beyond eating, and the emotional distress associated with unhealthy eating creates a potentially vicious cycle where negative emotions about food choices may themselves trigger further stress eating, suggesting the need for interventions that address emotional regulation skills, self-compassion, and nonjudgmental awareness of eating behaviors rather than solely focusing on nutritional education.

The low prevalence of consistent mindful eating practices is concerning, given the established benefits of mindfulness in promoting healthy eating behaviors. Mindful eating involves paying deliberate attention to the eating experience, recognizing hunger and satiety cues, and eating without distraction.¹⁹ Research has shown that mindful eating can reduce emotional eating, improve diet quality, and support weight management. Yet, the demanding schedules of research scholars often result in eating while working, multitasking during meals, or eating quickly between commitments. This pattern prevents the development of mindful eating habits and may contribute to overconsumption, poor food choices, and reduced eating enjoyment. Interventions promoting mindful eating practices could be particularly beneficial for this population, especially given that scholars themselves identified mindful eating as a potential strategy for improving well-being in the qualitative responses. The high rate of sedentary behavior is alarming, particularly for a young adult population, given the well-established association between physical inactivity and numerous health risks, including cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, mental health problems, and reduced cognitive function.²⁰ For research scholars who already spend extensive time in sedentary activities such as reading, writing, and computer work, the absence of compensatory physical activity compounds health risks. Verma et al. ²¹ explored physical activity levels among university students in India and found that patterns varied significantly across academic streams, with perceptions of curricular content related to physical activity also differing. Their findings emphasized the need for tailored interventions that consider the specific demands and schedules of different student populations. Regular physical activity is essential for managing stress, maintaining a healthy weight, preventing chronic diseases, and supporting mental health. The research scholar population may particularly benefit from interventions that incorporate physical activity into daily routines, such as walking meetings, standing desks, or scheduled exercise breaks, as the integration of physical activity into the academic day, rather than treating it as a separate activity requiring additional time, may be key to increasing engagement.

The qualitative analysis revealed that research scholars possess insight into strategies that could improve their well-being, identifying individual regulation, coping mechanisms, and environmental adaptations as important areas. This awareness suggests that interventions should focus not on knowledge provision but on addressing barriers to implementation. The recognition of environmental factors, particularly the need for healthier campus food alternatives and support for family-academic balance, indicates that individual-level interventions alone will be insufficient, and institutional changes that create supportive environments for health behaviors are essential. Based on our findings, an effective intervention framework should address multiple levels, including individual-level strategies such as stress management training, mindful eating workshops, and time management skills; and social-level approaches, including peer support groups and faculty modelling. Environmental modifications such as improved food options and physical activity spaces, and institutional policies that protect scholar working hours and integrate wellness into graduate training programs. The study by Pu et al.²² explored the connection between health consciousness and home-based exercise during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. It demonstrated that health consciousness significantly positively influenced home-based exercise, with this association mediated by perceived behavioral control, suggesting that while knowledge and consciousness are present among research scholars, perceived behavioral control²³ may be limited by external constraints such as time and environmental factors. Siddique et al.²⁴ investigated mental health knowledge and awareness among university students in Bangladesh. They found that, while awareness was high, knowledge remained insufficient, a finding that parallels ours: research scholars may have general health awareness but struggle to translate this into consistent healthy behaviors. Xue et al.²⁵ explored the mediating effect of health consciousness in the association between lifestyle and suboptimal health status among Chinese urban residents. They revealed that health consciousness served as the most important factor in promoting health behaviors, with individuals having more health knowledge believing they had greater control over their health, which translated into more proactive health behaviors. The study by Mehta and Bhat²⁶ on health awareness and behavior among adolescent students in rural India found that cultural contexts, gender norms, and environmental factors significantly influence health knowledge and behavior patterns. Suggesting that for research scholars at VIT, the campus environment, available facilities, food options, and institutional culture all contribute to health behavior patterns, and creating supportive environments that facilitate healthy choices is essential for improving health outcomes in this population. Future research should include longitudinal studies tracking health behaviors throughout the PhD journey, comparative studies across institutions and disciplines, intervention studies testing various programs, qualitative research exploring lived experiences, and investigations of the association between health behaviors and academic outcomes to strengthen the case for prioritizing scholar well-being and demonstrate that supporting health is not antithetical to academic success.

LIMITATIONS

Several limitations should be acknowledged. Firstly, a notable limitation is that the self-structured questionnaire was not formally validated through pilot testing or psychometric analysis. While the questionnaire was developed based on an extensive literature review and incorporated validated constructs from previous studies on health consciousness, eating behaviors, and perceived stress, the absence of formal validation procedures (e.g., content validity assessment by an expert panel, test-retest reliability, or internal consistency analysis) is acknowledged, which may affect the reliability and validity of the measurements. Future studies should employ formally validated instruments or conduct rigorous pilot testing and validation procedures, including assessment of content validity, construct validity, and internal consistency, to enhance measurement reliability and ensure psychometric soundness.

The cross-sectional design prevents establishing causal associations between variables. The convenient sampling method may limit generalizability to other institutions or research scholar populations. The sample size of 104 participants, while adequate for descriptive analysis, may be insufficient for more complex statistical analyses. The reliance on self-reported data may introduce social desirability bias, leading participants to over-report healthy behaviors. The study was conducted at a single institution, which may limit its applicability to scholars in different institutional contexts or geographic regions. The self-structured questionnaire, although based on a literature review, was not formally psychometrically validated. Future studies should employ validated instruments to enhance measurement reliability. Additionally, the study did not collect detailed information about specific health conditions, dietary patterns, or physical activity levels, which would provide a more comprehensive understanding of health status. The timing of data collection in June 2023 represents a specific point in the academic calendar, and health behaviors may vary across different periods of the academic year (e.g., during assessment periods, thesis writing deadlines, or academic breaks). Longitudinal studies tracking health behaviors across the entire academic year would provide a more nuanced understanding.

CONCLUSION

This study reveals that despite being highly educated and knowledgeable about health, research scholars at VIT face significant challenges in maintaining health-conscious behaviors. Time constraints, stress, and easy access to unhealthy foods emerge as primary barriers. More than half of the participants engage in stress eating, and mindful eating practices are uncommon. Negative emotions predominate when scholars engage in unhealthy eating, indicating awareness of consequences but difficulty in consistently making healthy choices. The findings underscore the need for comprehensive interventions addressing multiple levels: individual (stress management, mindful eating training), environmental (healthy food availability, physical activity facilities), and institutional (flexible scheduling, supportive policies). Research scholars represent a vulnerable population whose health needs require specific attention from institutions, policymakers, and health professionals.

Promoting health consciousness among research scholars is not merely about individual responsibility. Still, it requires systemic changes that recognize the demanding nature of doctoral training and create supportive environments for healthy living. Early identification of at-risk scholars and adequate support can prevent long-term health consequences and improve well-being and academic outcomes. The best course of action is to recognize health challenges early, intervene proactively, and provide sufficient, appropriate assistance tailored to the unique needs of the research scholar population. Institutions have a responsibility to create environments that facilitate rather than hinder health-promoting behaviors, recognizing that scholar well-being is foundational to academic success and long-term career sustainability.