Background: American college students are highly susceptible to stress, both acute and chronic. Studies have shown that stress can lead to physiological as well as pathological issues. Purpose: The purpose was to assess 30 traditional college aged students (20 males: 21 ± 2 years and 10 females: 21± 1 years) to determine if stress was related to the total body water of an individual. The study also correlated results from the InBody570 including: height, weight, age, dry lean mass, total body water and fat mass with self-perceived stress scores (Self-Perceived Stress Questionnaire). Methods: Participants were required to fill out a self-perceived stress questionnaire, an informed consent document and an exclusionary checklist, and then perform an InBody scan to determine body composition (lean body mass, fat mass, and total body water). Results: A Pearson Product Moment Correlation analysis revealed that there was no statistically significant correlation between total body water and a subject's self-perceived stress score (r=0.08, p=0.658). Conclusion: Results showed that there was no correlation between the variables of total body water and self-perceived stress score, rejecting the research hypothesis. Future research requiring longer fasting periods, larger sample size as well as other testing procedures measuring sodium and hormone levels may be needed to show correlation between total body water and self-perceived stress score.
