Lifestyle choices, workplace culture vital for India's economic growth: Govt

The Economic Survey 2024-25 has stressed good lifestyle choices, positive workplace culture, and family situations to make India's economic ambitions come true.

The Survey, which was tabled in Parliament on Friday by the Union Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman highlighted that the increase in mental health issues in children and adolescents is often linked to the overuse of the internet and, specifically, social media. Giving reference to Jonathan Haidt’s book ‘The Anxious Generation: How the great rewiring of children is causing an epidemic of mental illness’ Survey emphasizes that the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” is rewiring the very experience of growing up.

The FM emphasized that a better workplace culture will lead to better mental well-being. It also states that lifestyle choices and family situations also play a significant role in mental well-being.

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The Economic Survey states that individuals who rarely consume ultra-processed or packaged junk food have better mental well-being than those who regularly do. It also says that those who rarely exercise, spend their free time on social media, or are not close to their families have worse mental well-being, and spending long hours at one’s desk is equally detrimental to mental well-being.

Low levels of mental well-being are worrying, and the ramifications of these trends on the economy are equally disturbing, the Economic Survey pointed out.

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Additionally, it underscored that hostile work cultures and excessive hours spent working at the desk can adversely affect mental well-being and ultimately put the brakes on the pace of economic growth.

The government's economic survey emphasized the need for school and family-level interventions to encourage healthy pastimes meeting with friends, playing outside, and investing time in building close family bonds.

The document also stated that it is about time to find viable, impactful preventive strategies and interventions as India’s demographic dividend is riding on skills, education, physical health, and, above all, the mental health of its youth.