Association between lifestyle factors and mental health in apparently healthy young men | BMC Public Health

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Association between lifestyle factors and mental health in apparently healthy young men | BMC Public Health

Existing studies have focused on the effects of different exercise types, duration, and intensity on mental health, while fewer studies have examined the relationship between physical activity levels, sedentary time, body composition, and mental health. Therefore, the present study focuses on the effects of body composition, muscle strength, and sedentary time on men’s mental health, especially the changes in subjects’ mental health after 3 months of baseline prediction. The main findings suggest that there is a significant correlation between sedentary time, body composition, muscle strength, and mental health, with longer sedentary time associated with higher body fat content, and more severe depression. Notably, body composition at baseline somewhat predicted psychological changes three months later.

Recent studies on physical activity levels, sedentary time, body composition and muscle strength have all mentioned gender differences. There are anatomical and physiological differences between the sexes, and the decline with age may be different [25]. Prolonged sedentary behaviour was significantly correlated with total body fat distribution (especially abdominal fat accumulation), independent of physical activity levels, and a higher percentage of fat in women than in men. In addition, differences in hormone levels also contribute to the fact that men tend to have greater muscle mass and strength than women [26]. In addition to differences in fitness levels, there are also gender differences in the neural basis associated with the ability to regulate emotions, with males having a higher ability to regulate emotions than females. Given these gender differences, this study will place its focus on male subjects for further exploration [27].

Age-related degenerative changes in body tissues (muscle, fat and bone) that reduce overall strength and function can result in disease [28, 29]. The body composition phenotypes of the organism can be studied using the relationship between BMI, grip strength, skeletal muscle mass and fat mass [30, 31]. As shown in the research results, although the mean BMI and mean body fat percentage were within the normal range for Chinese men, age was significantly negatively correlated with HGS and jump height, and significantly positively correlated with BFM, BFMI and PBF, in line with the correlation between age and body composition. In addition, BMI was significantly correlated with sedentary time, fat mass index and grip strength body mass index, suggesting a link between body composition and sedentary behaviour. The research results, then, revealed that the longer the sedentary time, the higher the fat-related index of the subjects, suggesting that sedentary behaviour influences body composition and promotes the development of obesity. It is also found that indicators of body composition (BMI, body fat percentage, FMI, muscle mass, MMI) are significantly correlated with grip strength [32]. Hand grip strength serves as an indicator of individuals’ overall muscular strength, but some parameters can significantly reduce hand grip strength, such as increased fat mass index, increased age, etc. [33]. In a study on the normative values of grip strength in a large sample of Chinese people, the mean grip strength for men aged 30 + was 42.12 kg [32]. In the study, the mean grip strength was slightly lower, probably due to differences in body composition (fat mass and muscle mass). The research findings showed that grip strength was significantly positively correlated with SMM and SMI, and grip body mass index was significantly negatively correlated with BFM, BFMI and PBF, suggesting that increasing skeletal muscle content can increase upper limb strength, but it is necessary to control the generation of fat content. Therefore, it can be seen that there is a relationship between body composition, sedentary time and muscle strength. It is hypothesised that prolonged sedentary time alters body composition, exerting effects on muscle strength. However, the specific mechanisms involved need to be investigated further.

Regular exercise can not only change body composition and increase muscle strength but also improve mental health and reduce negative emotions such as anxiety and depression, thus promoting physiological or psychological changes [34]. The relationship between physical activity and sedentary behaviour has been controversial in recent years. The study suggests that there may be no direct relationship between levels of physical activity and sedentary behaviour, namely, the effects of sedentary behaviour on health are not related to physical activity [35]. In addition, the effects of sedentary behaviour on mental health are currently less well understood, with anecdotal evidence found in short- and long-term intervention trials, and no conclusive evidence on the specific mechanisms of sedentary behaviour. Previous studies have correlated different physical fitness indicators with mental health risk separately and found that obesity and sedentary time were positively correlated with the risk of anxiety and depression, and grip strength was negatively correlated with the risk of depression and anxiety [36]. This is consistent with the findings of the present study that body fat indicators and sedentary time were positively correlated with depression, and sedentary time was positively correlated with anxiety. In addition, longer sedentary time and higher body fat are associated with more severe levels of depression at baseline. It is worth noting that the change in depression levels after three months remained significantly negatively correlated with inbody factors, whereas higher body fat was associated with smaller changes in depression, presumably due to the fact the subjects with higher baseline depression levels have higher body fat, while the subjects with lower body fat have more room for depression levels to rise. The available evidence suggests that different forms of exercise training, including yoga, Pilates and High-Intensity Interval Training, positively influence body composition and psychological adaptation [37,38,39,40]. Therefore, future studies could consider designing comparative interventions of different exercise forms to further explore the direct effects and underlying mechanisms of these exercise modalities on body composition and mental health.

Limitations

Nevertheless, the study also has some limitations. Firstly, the study employed a cross-sectional design with only a 3-month follow-up on mental health, which may not adequately reflect long-term trends and causal relationships between variables. Future studies should adopt a longer-term longitudinal design to more accurately observe changes in mental health. Secondly, this study only included male subjects and did not compare differences across age groups or genders. Further research needs to expand the range of subjects to improve the generalizability of the findings. Lastly, this study lacked intervention measures, which may prevent direct assessment of how changes in lifestyle factors affect mental health. Future research could design exercise intervention programs based on factors such as exercise type, intensity, and duration to assess the impact of exercise on improving mental health, and further explore the potential biological mechanisms.

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