Assessing Life Stress: A Critical Priority in Obesity Research and Treatment

Significant childhood adversity and chronic life stress are highly prevalent in patients with severe obesity. Such stress has been found to increase risk of adulthood obesity by up to 50% and it can also substantially degrade the effectiveness of evidence-based treatments for this chronic disease condition. Despite general appreciation of these facts, though, stress is not frequently measured in obesity research or routinely assessed during treatment for obesity or obesity-related complications. To address this important issue, we describe several validated tools that can be used for assessing life stress and discuss how information obtained from these instruments can be integrated into obesity treatment and research. Given the ease with which stress can be assessed, we argue that stress assessment and management should be widely included in clinical treatments for obesity, and that stress should be routinely measured in studies examining the long-term effects of obesity and obesity treatment.