Environmental Factors
An absence of social support can make someone more susceptible to be stressed (Crane), but that can be eliminated with factors like extrinsic motives that can be gained through the advantages of exercise. As a stressed person, exercising can provide a social outlet to relieve stress as well as create an environment where making connections with others becomes easier. On a more statistical level, in the International Journal of Obesity a study was conducted to observe the sequential connection between obesity and stress by R. E. Roberts et al., as well as to conclude if each creates a risk factor for the other. Their findings showed that after 5 years of suffering obesity the risk of stress was increased, but the opposite could not be true because stress was not found to increase the possibility of obesity in the future (Korp). These results show that obesity has an effect on the mental state of an individual. Keeping that in mind, Texas, United States has the highest obesity rate within the country with the highest obesity rate in the world at 30.6%, while across the world Japan is, less than half of America’s obesity rate at 14.1% (Chaouloff). There have been speculations into the factors that created such a difference between the rates. The most common explanation as to why Americans have a much higher obesity rate is that people in Japan are significantly more physically active than the average American. This is not because Japanese people workout daily, but rather because exercise is integrated within their daily lives. For instance, walking is a minor detail in a Japanese daily routine that may not be acknowledged as exercise, but to an American the distance a Japanese walks from home to work and back would be a weekly workout. Although Japanese people do engage in physical activity often, it is true that their responses to this segment of their lives are something they do not even consider exercise. Benjamin Senauer and Masahiko Gemma conducted a survey of Japan and American men and women’s physical activity, and the results came to be that the average Japanese male 15 years and older walked 7,421 steps per day while the average American male 15 years and older walked an average of 5, 940 steps per day. As for the women, the average American woman walked 5,276 while the average Japanese woman walked 7,140 steps per day. This comparison directly points to the reason why the obesity rate is so high in America: exercise. Moreover, Wyatt et al. found that in the state with the lowest obesity rate in any of the 50 states of America, Colorado, a representative sample of adults had a BMI of 25.3 and the average steps per day was 6,804, which is more than the average Americans (Senauer). This clearly shows a direct correlation with walking and weight. Considering that obesity is correlated with stress and walking with weight, then what can be concluded is that, cross-culturally, with exercise preventing obesity it can in turn prevent extreme stress.