The Rise of Lifestyle Diseases in Kashmir

Credit By: DR DANISH MUSHTAQ

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• 05 May 2026

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Urbanisation, obesity, poor food habits and delayed diagnosis are reshaping the valley’s health profile

Kashmir has long been celebrated for its breath-taking mountains, clean streams, orchards, and a way of life once closely linked to nature, movement, and moderation. But beneath this beautiful image, a quieter and more dangerous crisis is unfolding. Lifestyle diseases—especially diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and heart ailments—are steadily tightening their grip on our society. Unlike infectious outbreaks, they do not arrive with immediate drama. They spread silently, often unnoticed, through our kitchens, offices, schools, markets, and even our drawing rooms. By the time they are diagnosed, much of the damage has already begun.

This is no longer a problem of the elderly alone, nor is it restricted to cities. It is increasingly visible among middle-aged adults, young professionals, homemakers, and even adolescents. The troubling truth is that Kashmir is changing faster than many people realize. Our lifestyles have become more sedentary, our diets more imbalanced, our stress more chronic, and our environment less healthy. The result is a public health emergency that deserves urgent attention.

Across Jammu and Kashmir, available health survey data already point to substantial levels of hypertension, overweight and obesity, along with rising self-reported diabetes.

The National Family Health Survey for Jammu and Kashmir highlighted abdominal obesity as a major cardiometabolic risk, especially because it is closely linked to type-2 diabetes and heart disease. Broader Indian non-communicable disease research has also shown that diabetes and related disorders are rising sharply across the country, including in northern regions, under the combined weight of urbanisation, inactivity, and unhealthy eating patterns. In simpler terms, Kashmir is not outside this epidemic; it is very much part of it.

The reasons are not difficult to identify. Traditional Kashmiri life once involved far more physical movement. People walked longer distances, worked in fields, tended orchards, or handled household tasks that kept the body active. Today, daily life is increasingly dominated by desk work, screen time, motorised transport, and long hours of sitting. Even children are growing up in a culture where outdoor games are being replaced by mobile phones and digital entertainment. This gradual loss of physical activity is one of the biggest drivers of weight gain, poor cardiovascular health, and insulin resistance.

Diet is another major factor. Kashmiri cuisine is rich, flavourful and deeply tied to culture, but modern food habits have become more frequent, more processed and less balanced. Excessive consumption of refined carbohydrates, fried foods, sugary beverages, bakery items, and salt-heavy meals is becoming common. Portion sizes have grown, while nutritional discipline has weakened. Many families still equate good eating with heavy eating. In social gatherings, celebrations and even routine hospitality, food is often abundant but not always healthy. The body eventually pays the price for these habits.

Obesity, particularly abdominal obesity, is one of the clearest warning signs of this shift. It is not merely a cosmetic issue; it is a metabolic alarm bell. It increases the risk of diabetes, hypertension, heart attacks and stroke. Yet in many homes, unhealthy weight gain is either normalised or ignored until disease appears. This culture of delayed concern must change. Prevention cannot begin after a cardiac event or a diabetes diagnosis. It must begin much earlier.

Another serious but under-discussed contributor is stress. Chronic stress affects the body in profound ways. It raises blood pressure, disturbs sleep, encourages emotional eating, and worsens diabetes risk. Stress also pushes some people toward harmful coping mechanisms, including substance use. A parliamentary committee report cited around 1.35 million drug users in Jammu and Kashmir among people aged 18 to 75, underlining the scale of psychosocial distress and unhealthy coping in the region. A population under prolonged stress is naturally more vulnerable to lifestyle illness.

Then there is the environment itself. Kashmiris often assume that because we live in a valley known for natural beauty, the air around us must be relatively safe. That assumption is increasingly false, especially in urban centres. A study from Srinagar found particulate pollution levels far above India’s national ambient air quality standards, with PM10 recorded at 2.0 to 3.2 times the standard and PM2.5 at 1.7 to 2.8 times the standard during the study period.

Another policy analysis noted that around 12.5 million people in Jammu and Kashmir are breathing air that does not meet World Health Organization clean-air standards, with vehicular emissions identified as a major source. This matters because air pollution is not only a lung issue; it is strongly linked to heart disease, stroke, hypertension and even diabetes risk.

In other words, Kashmir’s lifestyle disease burden is being fed from several directions at once: poor diet, lack of exercise, rising obesity, chronic stress, environmental pollution, and delayed screening. It is this clustering of risks that makes the problem especially dangerous. A person who eats poorly, moves little, sleeps badly, lives under stress, and breathes polluted air is not facing one threat but many, all interacting with each other.

What is equally worrying is the culture of medical neglect. Many people do not check their blood pressure unless they feel dizzy. Many do not test blood sugar unless they develop obvious symptoms. But hypertension is often symptomless. Diabetes can quietly damage the eyes, kidneys, nerves and blood vessels before a patient feels seriously unwell. Countless people in Kashmir may already be living with undiagnosed illness. Health awareness remains reactive when it must become preventive.

The answer, however, is not panic. It is public seriousness. First, regular screening must become a social habit. Blood pressure, blood sugar, body weight and waist measurement should be checked routinely, especially after the age of 30 or earlier in high-risk families. Second, schools must treat physical activity as essential, not optional. Third, doctors, religious leaders, educators and media institutions should work together to create a wider culture of prevention. Public messaging must make it clear that a daily walk, reduced salt and sugar, better sleep, and early testing are not small acts—they are life-saving ones.

Government, too, has a central role. Primary health centres and community clinics must be strengthened to screen and counsel people before the disease becomes severe. Urban planning should encourage walkability and reduce traffic congestion. Anti-tobacco and anti-drug campaigns must be linked with broader lifestyle health awareness. The burden of non-communicable disease cannot be tackled by hospitals alone; it requires a whole-of-society approach.

Kashmir today stands at an important crossroads. We can continue to romanticise our landscape while ignoring the deterioration in our health, or we can recognise that modern living is reshaping our bodies and our future. Lifestyle diseases are not inevitable. They are largely preventable. But prevention demands honesty, discipline and collective resolve.

The real tragedy would be to treat this crisis as normal. A society cannot call itself healthy if its people are becoming sicker in silence. The time has come to restore balance—in what we eat, how we move, how we live, and how seriously we value our own wellbeing. If we fail to act now, lifestyle diseases will become one of the heaviest burdens Kashmir carries in the years ahead. If we act in time, they can still be slowed, reduced, and prevented.

That choice is still ours.

(The Author has a PhD in Microbiology and is a lecturer)