Cover photo by John Moore via Getty Images
In an anticipated, yet concerning publication last month, the Journal of the America Medical Association Network determined that youth between the ages of 5 to 17 experienced significant weight gain during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study utilized Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California database, stating that “these findings, if generalizable to the United States suggest an increase in pediatric obesity due to the pandemic.” The results from this recent study are further upheld and reinforced by multiple previous scientific publications over the course of the still ongoing pandemic.
In the aptly titled study, “When Pandemics Collide,” researchers in late 2020 determined that the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on decades-long childhood obesity pandemic was indisputable. “The clashing of the two diseases and the subsequent changes in the bioecological environment have placed children and adolescents at increased risk to develop obesity and exacerbate obesity disease severity” researchers said.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the childhood and adolescent obesity pandemic had been long ongoing. Although not as immediately life-threatening as COVID-19, 17% of US children were obese in 2019, a data point researchers considered “epidemic levels” in the United States. According to the Center for Disease Control, obesity now affects 1 in 5 children and adolescents in the country. It can be attributed to a multitude of factors, including eating and physical behaviors, any plethora of health issues, community environment, socioeconomic status and more. This silent pandemic has been waging on for decades, marked by a 14% increase of obese children and adolescents from 1971 to 2018.
“There’s a fair amount of evidence accumulating that school can reduce the risk for obesity,” says Dr. Lindsey Turnet of Boise State University. “That’s most likely because of the structure and predictability of school days, as well as access to healthy school meals, physical education, and other supports for students.” Mostly starting in March 2020, school-aged youth worldwide were sent to continue their studies from the safety of their homes. In the process, students were at greater risk of becoming obese.
Living in compliance with pandemic containment measures meant losing constant movement during the day, walking to school, movement to get to classes, mandatory physical education courses and more. In addition, lower-income students who relied on school meal offerings lost the limited healthy meals they had to begin with. With schools closed, students “lost the safety net of access to nutritious food, a safe place to be, and mandatory physical activity.”
Children walk to an exercise class program for overweight adolescents and children. Photo by John Moore via Getty Images
Not only were children and adolescents forced to adapt to life with limited movement, and some with limited nutritious meals, but all were forced to adapt to a foreseeable future in front of screens. With the world gone digital from March 2020 and onwards, work, school and play occur most safely within the confines of a phone or computer screen. With life moving on in the digital realm amidst the pandemic, no child has been unable to avoid their eyes glued to a screen, especially school-aged students. Thus, the pandemic’s effect on children’s increased body mass index was not unexpected, said Glenn Weaver, lead author of a study on the pandemic’s impact on children’s weight. Although not unexpected, Weaver says the magnitude of acceleration in the changes being documented is alarming and requires urgent public health interventions.
Although increased obesity rates were observed in every youth demographic, the more significant increases were seen in Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, publicly insured or lower income children. Once again, the results are not unsurprising given the “preexisting disparities in obesity” when accounting for race, socioeconomic status, and more. The pandemic required shutdowns in every aspect of society, leaving financially vulnerable and marginalized demographics even further financially endangered. For kids, this meant eating cheaper and unhealthier foods, or even eating less, losing access to health services and more.
While the COVID-19 pandemic (more or less) has some sort of semblance of ending in the foreseeable future, the youth obesity epidemic does not have defined mechanisms to stop endangering the health of children and adolescents in the United States. Governments, doctors, researchers and parents alike agree that now more than ever, addressing the pandemic of youth obesity is critical. While discussing the future implications of the two pandemics in tandem, the Lancet Public Health Journal succinctly stated that allowing childhood obesity to increase further will result in even greater health and economic challenges for future generations, including health vulnerability during pandemics like COVID-19.
So what will it take to end a pandemic with no instant solution, like a vaccine? What do future interventions look like? In a recent policy brief, the World Obesity Organization has asked policymakers around the world to ensure that for all children in need, they will have “nutritionally adequate food… especially during school closures.”
Further policy recommendations include ensuring free school meals for all students remain accessible, even after the pandemic, as well as raising the standard of nutritional quality of food being served. Finally, governments are urged to take the lead, to ultimately prioritize the pandemic of childhood obesity with the same gravity as they did COVID-19. It is an opportunity to be seized, now or never, for the future wellbeing of the youngest generations.
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