Why women leaders often put their own health last

For women in demanding leadership roles, long hours, frequent travel, and family responsibilities can make nutrition, sleep, and self-care the first things to be compromised. The consequences can become more visible as women enter their 40s.

Renu Puri, co-founder and head dietitian at Niwi.aii, India’s premium Nutrition Concierge Service, has spent three decades working with thousands of Indian women. In her experience, one pattern appears repeatedly: women who spend years taking care of everyone and everything else often end up putting their own health at the bottom of the list.

“Women leaders stop prioritising their health,” Puri says. “I’m not sure if this is a subconscious conditioning to punish oneself for wanting something with clarity. But we do punish ourselves.”

The issue is not simply about what women eat. It is about how career demands, family responsibilities, stress, sleep, and long-standing attitudes towards food can come together to affect their health.

When a promotion changes everything

Take, for example, a woman who is being considered for a promotion. She is one of three candidates and knows that the next few months will be important. She starts working longer hours, takes every meeting she can, and makes herself available outside the traditional workday.

“Yes, of course, I’m available,” becomes her standard response.

Then come the business trips, early flights and red-eyes. Meals happen between meetings. Sleep becomes something to catch up on later.

At a hotel breakfast, she may reach for a doughnut and coffee because it is quick and convenient. By afternoon, she is tired and hungry. Stress and fatigue make it harder to make considered food choices, and the cycle continues.

This is not about one doughnut or one missed meal. The concern is what happens when irregular eating, poor sleep and high stress become the norm.

Over months and years, a demanding work schedule can begin to influence everything from eating patterns and energy levels to sleep and mood.

The problem with always putting yourself second

For many women, professional pressure exists alongside another set of expectations at home. A woman may be expected to build her career without allowing it to interfere with family responsibilities. She may travel for work while continuing to manage responsibilities at home. She may lead a team at work and remain the primary person coordinating family life. Something has to give. Too often, it is her own health.

A doctor's appointment gets postponed. Exercise is dropped during a particularly busy week. Dinner is replaced by whatever is available. Sleep is sacrificed to finish a presentation or respond to emails. One week becomes several months, and several months can become years.

Puri says guilt is a recurring theme in her conversations with women leaders. “I’ve been told, ‘I feel guilty,’ across different decades by so many women leaders that it almost seems to be the gateway to success,” she says.

The guilt may come from spending time away from family, taking time for oneself or feeling that personal needs should come after everyone else's.

Why the effects can become more noticeable in your 40s

The consequences of years of neglect are not always immediately visible. A woman may manage on limited sleep in her 20s and 30s. She may skip meals, travel frequently, and work through periods of intense stress without feeling that anything is seriously wrong. But as she enters her 40s, changes in sleep, energy, body composition, and hormonal health can become more noticeable.

For some women, weight gain around the abdomen becomes a concern. Others may experience disrupted sleep or changes in their menstrual cycle and mood. The strategies they relied on when they were younger, including restrictive diets and eating very little, may no longer work in the same way.

This can be particularly confusing for women who believe they are barely eating but are still gaining weight. Years of restrictive eating can also affect a woman's relationship with food. The idea that eating less is always better has been reinforced by decades of diet culture, leaving many women believing that hunger is evidence of discipline. It isn't.

Why eating less is not the solution

Weight management is often reduced to a simple equation: eat less and exercise more. Women's health is considerably more complex. “Adequate nutrition is important for maintaining energy, muscle mass, and overall health. Eating too little, particularly while dealing with high stress and poor sleep, can make it harder to maintain healthy eating patterns over time,” says Puri.

The goal should not be to constantly restrict food. It should be to understand what the body needs and establish an eating pattern that is nutritionally adequate and sustainable. This becomes increasingly important as women move through different stages of their lives and their nutritional and hormonal needs change.

The connection between nutrition, sleep, and stress

Food is only one part of the picture. Poor sleep can leave a person fatigued and affect appetite and food choices. Stress can make it harder to maintain regular meals and exercise. Irregular eating can, in turn, affect energy levels and the ability to maintain a consistent routine. These factors can create a cycle that is difficult to break. This is why Puri believes interventions need to look beyond weight alone.

“There’s a reason they say that the gut is the second brain,” she says. “That intervention works best, if done at the right time.” The focus should be on the overall picture: nutrition, sleep, stress, physical activity and hormonal health, rather than treating each concern as an isolated problem.

There is a right time to intervene

After 30 years of working with Indian women, Puri believes there is a window when women can take control of their health and make meaningful changes before unhealthy patterns become deeply entrenched. “There’s a window in a woman’s life where taking control, the right way, helps reset,” she says. The emphasis is on “the right way”.

For someone who has spent years restricting food or ignoring her health, another crash diet is unlikely to be the answer. Nor is extreme exercise or another short-term wellness programme. Instead, the focus needs to be on sustainable changes: eating adequately, improving sleep, managing stress, staying physically active and understanding the changes taking place in the body.

For women entering their 40s, this can also mean paying greater attention to hormonal health and seeking professional advice when changes in sleep, weight, energy or menstrual health persist.

Health has to be part of the definition of success

Women are often very good at nurturing the people around them. They support their teams, families, and relationships while continuing to meet professional expectations. But that same care needs to extend to themselves.

“We nurture, nourish and deliver,” Puri says. “We nurture, nourish and deliver, at work and at home. If only we could extend this to ourselves and not be ashamed of it.” For women who have spent years putting their careers and families first, prioritising health can initially feel uncomfortable. It may even trigger the guilt Puri describes.

But health should not be something women address only when there is a problem. It needs to be part of the equation from the beginning,  because sustaining a career, a family and a fulfilling life requires more than ambition. It requires the physical and mental capacity to keep doing it.

Lead image: Pexels

Also read: The best lip mousses for a blurred matte lip this fall

Also read: In a world that never logs off, disappearing feels revolutionary