Two highly overriding problems that the society is facing today are stress and obesity. This narrative review article explains the vicious cycle of how stress leads to obesity and vice versa. Stress and obesity are interconnected to each other through different lines of cognition, behavior, and physiology. Stress can interfere with cognitive processes like self-regulation. Stress can also influence behavior by indulging in overeating of foods that are high in calories, fat, and sugar. Stress also invigorates the generation of biochemical hormones and peptides, for example, leptin, ghrelin, and neuropeptide Y. This article also extracts the contribution of weight stigma and social stress in producing obesity in an obesogenic process. Recent Studies describe that psychological distress and elevated cortisol secretion promote abdominal fat, a feature of the metabolic syndrome, improvements in mindfulness, chronic stress, and cortisol awakening response (CAR) were associated with reductions in abdominal fat. Mindfulness intervention for stress suggests that mindfulness training improves eating patterns and the CAR, which may reduce abdominal fat over time. Obesity has a multifaceted etiology. In this review, several factors of stress are identified that affect the development of obesity. This review also provides valuable insight into the relationship between obesity and stress.

This narrative review paper aims at highlighting the menopausal obesity-related health problems in women, their effects on physical and mental health, the mechanism of its development and its impact on the functionality of the female hormones. Furthermore, we also try to understand the lifestyle behaviour patterns that cause deleterious health consequences, thus disrupting the production of estrogen and increasing hyperandrogenaemia (high levels of androgens) in postmenopausal females. Also, we have addressed some healthier lifestyle alternatives and the use of hormonal substitution treatment, if applicable. Menopause is characterized by a change in the hormonal structure in women, wherein, there is a rapid decline in estrogen levels, which is a major contributor to the central abdominal fat accumulation, reduction in subcutaneous fat and increase in total adiposity. Women after menopause are thus thrice as likely as premenopausal women to develop obesity and metabolic syndrome. There is a stark difference in the way the eastern and western societies perceive menopause.