Shocking!! High BP and diabetes diagnosed among college students in Chennai!!
When you are young, your body would be strong and health would be amazing!!
It seems this is not the case with many College going youngsters now. In Chennai, the college students have been diagnosed with health issues like diabetes and hypertension etc. Point is that atleast 50 college students have been diagnosed with hypertension with blood pressure levels consistently above 140/90 mm Hg. Diabetes was diagnosed in almost equal numbers of students.
It was later brought to light by a study conducted in places like Chennai, Trichy and Pune etc that the college students in urban areas had a huge risk of getting non-communicable diseases or NCD. The minister for higher education Mr. Kovai Chezhiyan released the data in the Women`s Christian College or WCC in Chennai.
What was the deep dive survey about?
After analysing more than one lakh data since 2016, Apollo Shine Foundation screened 10000 college students in 2025 for this deep dive survey. According to the data (that is decade long old) that had details regarding weight, BP, blood sugar, waist circumference, diet, physical activity, sleep, stress, substance use and family history revealed 38.4% had normal body weight. It must be noted that 13.7% were overweight, 19.1% had class1 obesity, 8% class2 obesity, 0.4% had morbid obesity. In 2.2% students, random blood sugar was high and in 4.7% students BP was high.
As per Dr. Indra Jayakumar, Apollo Shine Foundation medical director, while risk factors such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes etc have been present in the college students, the severity of these health issues have become more now. She added that in the study class2 obesity increased to 9.6% and morbid obesity was at 0.6%. It was shocking to note that high waist circumference was noticed in 30.6% of the college going students. It is known that high waist circumference is an indicator of metabolic syndrome.
Truth is that the students must not have high cholesterol levels or fats etc or dyslipidemia in their blood as it could make them prone to serious issues like heart attacks, strokes, cancer and organ failures etc. From the data it was clear that the BP was on a higher side for the boy students when compared with the girl students.
Yesterday, 4th September 2025, Apollo Shine Foundation launched `Catch `Em Young` campaign whose main objective would be to prevent and tackle the burden of NCD.
