Not restricted to adults alone, lifestyle diseases have started hitting kids as well. The shift in purchasing power and the coming in of technology has changed the way our life functions now. Less physical activity, more availability of resources and no time to spare, we have become preys to some extremely uncommon diseases our grandparents had never even heard about back in the 60s and 70s.

Globally, 14.2 million people ages 30-69 years, die prematurely each year from diseases like heart attack, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Some of these diseases have emerged as more fatal than hereditary diseases or infectious ones.

Some of the most common type of lifestyle diseases –

1. Obesity: We are all familiar with this word & yet tend to ignore it. To see whether you’ve reached this stage, check your BMI. If it is more than 25, then you are in the obese category. Unhealthy eating habits, stressful lifestyle, reduced physical activity translates to obesity. Anybody who is overweight suffers from breathing issues, blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes etc. This is also the first step to your body attracting all kinds of other lifestyle diseases.
According to the National Family Health Survey, India ranks second with 155 million obese citizens and this number is increasing at 33-51% every year.

2. Type II diabetes: obesity is one of primary causes of Type II diabetes. Type II diabetes develops in adults due to poor eating habits & bad lifestyle choices. India has largest number of type 2 diabetics ie 40.9 million. This number is increasing with kids entering the bandwagon.

3. Arteriosclerosis: Arteriosclerosis occurs when arterial blood vessel walls thicken & lose elasticity. This usually causes blood circulation disorders, chest pain, and heart attacks. Arteriosclerosis is also linked to obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure. Atleast 30-40% of cardiovascular deaths happen in the age group of 34-64 in India.

4. Heart diseases: Any irregularity or abnormality which affects the heart muscle and blood vessel walls can be referred to as a heart disease. Smoking, diabetes and high cholesterol contribute to its development in the body. India ranks number one when it comes to cardio patients with 50 million suffering heart health issues.

5. High blood pressure: 100 million in India suffer from high blood pressure. Some very common reasons for high blood pressure are stress, obesity, genetic factors and unhealthy eating habits. When the reading in the blood pressure machine is 140/90 or higher, your blood pressure is high. Once this happens, you will feel severe discomfort.

6. Swimmer’s ear: When you use headphones constantly and are exposed to loud music more than you should be, the ultimate result of this is swimmer’s ear. Swimmer’s ear causes inflammation, irritation or infection in the ear canal or the outer ear. According to studies, 12.5% approximately have suffered permanent damage to their hearing due to constant exposure to noise. This number is said to be increasing by the year.

7. Cancer: The stressful lifestyle that we lead now, our body’s immunity has decreased. This means that the white blood cells lose their power to fight the viruses that enter our body. Because of this, there may be an irregular cell growth, which can be concluded as cancer. Cancer can be caused due to many reasons like prolonged smoking (lung cancer), too much exposure to the sun (skin cancer).