COVID Tips The Scales

 

You may be familiar with the “Quarantine 15” — unwanted weight suddenly sedentary adults packed on during lockdowns in the early days of the pandemic. A study published last year in JAMA confirmed that shelter-in-place orders in March and April 2020 coincided with “changes in physical activity and patterns of daily living, as well as concurrent self-reported increases in snacking and overeating” to help tip the scales in the wrong direction.

Research from California published in the same journal last month revealed that children have also experienced unwanted weight gain during the pandemic. Laura Reiley reports on a significant rise of childhood obesity, which affects close to 20%, or 1 in 5 American children (another 20% meet the criteria for overweight). Especially disturbing were the numbers involving children between 5 and 11 years old:

The greatest change was among children ages 5 to 11, who gained an average of more than five pounds, adjusted for height, according to the study published in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

For the average 5-year-old (about 40 pounds), that’s a 12.5 percent weight gain. For the average 11-year-old (about 82 pounds), it’s a 6 percent weight gain, according to the study. Before the pandemic, about 36 percent of 5- to 11-year-olds were considered overweight or obese, and that increased to 45.7 percent.

The study has fingers pointing in all directions to assign blame: at kids being less active during months of lockdown and virtual learning; at parents dealing with stress and “COVID fatigue”; and at food corporations marketing their high calorie products to gullible consumers:

“Purchasing patterns and activity patterns both went in the wrong direction,” Popkin said. “Kids in school had to be in front of computers, and there were lockdowns that kept people inside. But the bigger increase was the increased purchase of ready-to-eat junk food, foods high in calories, saturated fat and added sugars. The sale of these went up more than any other category.”

Ritchie said that companies selling junk food have had more access during the pandemic to market directly to children who spent more time on screens.

“What this has taught us is that our food environment is way out of line with what we need. Food companies are geared to getting us to eat as many calories as possible,” Ritchie said. “And we are geared toward eating when food is available.”

Tomorrow, we’ll take a closer look at what kids have been eating, and what has been driving the epidemic of childhood overweight and obesity in the United States for at least the last two decades.

Read more about childhood obesity on The PediaBlog here.

 

(Google Images)

 

source http://www.thepediablog.com/2021/09/20/covid-tips-the-scales/