Study: Childhood obesity in U.S. accelerated during pandemic:
A new study ties the COVID-19 pandemic to an "alarming" increase in obesity in U.S. children and teenagers.
Childhood obesity has been increasing for decades, but the new work suggests an acceleration last year — especially in those who already were obese when the pandemic started.
The results signal a "profound increase in weight gain for kids" and are "substantial and alarming," said one of the study's authors, Dr. Alyson Goodman of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It's also a sign of a vicious cycle. The pandemic appears to be worsening the nation's longstanding obesity epidemic, and obesity can put people at risk for more severe illness after coronavirus infection.
The CDC on Thursday released the study, which is the largest yet to look at obesity trends during the pandemic.
It found:
- An estimated 22% of children and teens were obese last August, up from 19% a year earlier.
- Before the pandemic, children who were a healthy weight were gaining an average of 3.4 pounds a year. That rose to 5.4 pounds during the pandemic.
- For kids who were moderately obese, expected weight gain rose from 6.5 pounds a year before the pandemic to 12 pounds after the pandemic began.
- For severely obese kids, expected annual weight gain went from 8.8 pounds to 14.6 pounds.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Gaaark on Friday September 17 2021, @11:42PM (9 children)
When I was a kid, we ripped and tore through the neighbourhood, not stopping until we dropped: running, playing football, riding bikes, etc. We got one Pop Shoppe pop every other day maximum and ate pretty good food.
Now kids sit and eat too much junk and the adults play Playstation with them, and Fat Bless Us, Everyone! You just don't see kids outside like when we were young: take away the Playstation etc, and make them go outside.
Or something.
But stay off muh lawn!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @11:50PM (4 children)
Stop fat shaming! Be body positive!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @02:10AM (1 child)
The problem is that the bodies became more and more positive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @03:21PM
--
You have the right to remain dead.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @09:09AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @10:45AM
If you are serious, -1 Troll.
If you are being sarcastic, +1 Funny.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Saturday September 18 2021, @12:08AM (1 child)
We also walked to and from the bus stop, between classes, had physical education classes, ran in the hallways and up and down flights of stairs, etc. So now the COVID-19 pandemic statistics may be making the currently titanic obesity epidemic even more endemic.
What if Google brought back Google glasses but Zoom-enabled them, so you could take a walk during class or meetings? That could even reverse things.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @02:15AM
Power the PC using a dynamo on an treadmill, exercise bike, or erg, or something, depemding on what you want the load to be. I reckon if most kids passed out from exhaustion after 8 minutes of remote schooling they'd be reasonably happy, so perhaps the erg is perfect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @05:23PM
wait, what? so that the pedos can get them or the Q-anons can drink their blood? At least now we have vigilance to prevent this type of crap
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/maryland-couple-want-free-range-kids-but-not-all-do/2015/01/14/d406c0be-9c0f-11e4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
When I was 6, I walked to school a mile away, alone, but this was long ago in a communist country. We don't do these stupid things in the civilized America anymore. When I was 15, I was asked by a concerned mother whether I would walk their child to the corner to wait for a bus, because you know, it's difficult for a 12 year old to walk 100m without getting kidnapped or run over by a car. Today, only allow kids to play outside when under the eye of a parent, preferably multiple just to be certain that one is not a pedo or worse.
The playstation is the only safe option. Really. The obesity is just the price the kids have to pay for the safety (for the bypass OP at 40, if they even qualify)
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday September 20 2021, @02:53PM
In some places you can't send your kid out to play in your own yard and just check on them every now and again. Your "friendly neighbors" will be calling Child Protective Services on you, because the child is in danger. Times have changed and not necessarily for the better.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @11:44PM (9 children)
I've lost weight during the pandemic. I put it down mostly due to lower stress from being at home.
Does anyone have good speculation on what the causes of this obesity increase could be? Are parents feeding their children more now?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @11:52PM (7 children)
》 Does anyone have good speculation on what the causes of this obesity increase could be?
More calories in than out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @01:14AM (6 children)
Pretty much, that and how much more expensive healthy food is now than in the past. Between deceased exercise, more processing in food and a generally harder to figure out diet than in the past, obesity was always going to skyrocket.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @03:18AM (5 children)
Ha! tell that to the Uber Eats generation!
It's far cheaper from me to prepare and cook food bought at the supermarket than order takeaway by bicycle courier.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday September 18 2021, @04:53AM (4 children)
but it isn't as convenient
All that "preparation" and shopping and having stuff in the pantry, freezer or fridge.. and one of your friends won't like, like whatever you were going to cook.
Better just order in, so everyone can have different things from different places..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @06:23AM (3 children)
It's also an irrelevant argument. The problem isn't delivered fast food, it's processed groceries. Frozen meals, cookies, chips, prepared foods with extra HFCS. Buying actual fresh fruit and vegetables is not only more work to prepare, it is more expensive. I can buy a decent frozen pizza for $3 and it needs 20 seconds to rip the cover off and stick it in the oven. Or I can spend $10 on vegies and meat and half an hour to prepare a meal that is about as filling, but much healthier.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 18 2021, @08:27AM (2 children)
You're seem to be slipping around an issue there. Your favorite eatery is also using processed foods. Frozen meals, cookies, chips, prepared foods with extra HFCS - everything that is wrong in your grocery store is also wrong in the restaurant industry. Some restaurants and franchises are better than others, but few are known for "fresh" "wholesome" "balanced" meals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @09:14AM
There's a noodle bar type place near me where you can see them prepare the food behind the counter. Big tubs of fresh vegies and meat in plain view. They throw in some noodles, sauce, vegies, and meat and stir fry it to order.
Pretty sure what they are cooking is at least as healthy as anything I would cook at home.
But yeah, prepared foods in general are not better or worse than the processed groceries. I was objecting to the GPP view that take-away is automatically worse than grocery store products. It isn't. There are good and bad options with both.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @09:20AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @01:32AM
No recess, fear of going outside.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @12:00AM
At that rate these chubby little porkers are going to have trouble getting into DannyB's basement to watch TV. Won't someone think of the poor pedophiles?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @12:42AM (7 children)
For the love of God won't someone think of the precious chillllldrennnnn? We can't have them running around outside where Corona-chan might seduce them into an unholy life of vice and turpitude! They must be safely indoors with Mummy and Daddy and their best babysitter: Friend Internet!
Oh noes, they put on weight, who could possibly have foreseen this entirely shocking turn of events? Panic! Run for the hills! No, wait, don't run for the hills because Lady Corona is out there, flashing sexy ankle from her limo where she preys on innocent kiddies!
Of course, realistically, they'd be at greater risk of being run over while running around than being severely affected by COVID-19, but nobody's budget depends on that.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @01:59AM (6 children)
You seem to have accidentally forgotten or overlooked the fact that children are perfectly capable of transmitting covid, even if they may suffer no ill effects at all.
How many Typhoid Maries did you want out there?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @10:43AM (2 children)
And you seem to have forgotten or overlooked that there is a vaccine available to everyone for free that protects them from COVID (unless the Government and media are lying to us).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @05:20PM (1 child)
>> unless the Government and media are lying to us
Why would you assume they aren't?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @07:31PM
Which government and which media? Different ones say completely opposite things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @03:26PM (1 child)
All those republican governors and right wing talk show hosts must really be RINOs working to kill off the Trumpets from the inside. After all, they're pretty much all vaccinated, they just try to avoid admitting it.
21st century and viruses are still doing what they've always done - taken advantage of ignorance to cull the stupid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @07:33PM
It's all about making the current Prez look bad and getting red voters hopping mad for the mid-term elections. Yes it's that simple.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @04:00PM
OK, smart guy, let's look at the actual numbers on the ground.
The in-the-wild, total mortality rate across the broad population appears to be (based on, for example, the case of Sweden), if they are largely unprotected, under 2%. In fact, under 1%. So far, after about 18 months of febrile panic and super-spreader events whipsawing the country from open to closed, the USA has a demonstrated total mortality from COVID, including dubious cases and cases with substantial comorbidities, of under 1/2%. By a country mile - last I heard mortality was under 1 million, and the country contains around 350 million people.
So explain again how this calculus results in anything like the level of concern generated by typhoid?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @02:07AM
Obesity was increasing.
With covid, it increased.
Yeah, but it was increasing anyway.
Shitty parents gonna breed fat fucks. But no, let's blame Biden for all the fat fucks because clearly the virus is politically partisan and none of the covid thing happened in Trump's term. No, it didn't, I remember him clearly saying on the news that it may be 20 cases at that point in time, but soon it would be 10, then 5, then none. Fact.
200 9/11s later...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Saturday September 18 2021, @02:09AM (3 children)
Currently, as in Today, I live in an area where people have mask themselves up outdoors. Their kids are not allowed to play together. They are all convinced that either their children are going to get sick and be the one that ends up in the hospital, OR their kid will be the one that gets sick and then gives it to their vaccinated grandparent who then has a breakthrough case.
Of course kids get fat when they stay inside and aren't allowed to play with friends. When I was a kid, we had the outdoors. Most kids today have Twitch and a TV, and are told by self described "rational people" that everyone else is a danger to them and their families. If its not COVID, its that they are all going to get stolen and sold as sex slaves.
What I see from kids these days is that for them, the safest way to not get yelled at, punished, told what to do, become confused, is to sit inside, on a video game with their "friends" and avoid the insanity that is happening to their parents and all around them.
It is not good for any creature on planet earth to have the stress levels turned up to 11, forever. What isn't captured in these results is the other issues of depression, the life course this will set these kids on, the total lack of calm, and rational people to look up.
All of these "experts" that say that lockdowns and masks are something our kids will just forget and move on from. It is very clear to me from talking to my kids and others kids, that these experts are completely full of it, and have NO idea what they are talking about. Just ask the mom of a 2 year old that can't wait to wear a mask because it makes them feel normal. Or the 6 year old that is shy and is afraid to take off the mask because they feel uncomfortable without it. Or the 13 year old that is now afraid of germs who's hands are so chapped from forced washing that they bleed every day.
And this is all sane? Ugh. Please tell me more about why this is a great idea to constantly do nothing but tell each other why we should be afraid to live.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @07:38PM (2 children)
Mask wearing is Sharia Law by the back door, I've said it before. But did anyone listen?? Nooooooo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 19 2021, @07:05AM (1 child)
The funny thing is that people who say such things are often evangelical authoritarians that push to restrict freedoms for others based on their religious texts. You know, a lot more like Sharia law than medical rules in a pandemic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @02:59PM
Have you noticed that we have bicycle helmet mandates? And that those helmet mandates are not based on LIGHTNING GRAPHICS and WOWSKULLS and RAWRRRR, but on things like Snell standards, testing and construction?
But now we have a mask mandate that apparently seems to be OK with ultra-sheer pantyhose pulled over the head.
TRUST THE SCIENCE!!!
furrfu
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday September 18 2021, @04:22AM (2 children)
High Fructose Corn Syrup, widely used in sweetened beverages and foods has been directly connected to obesty [princeton.edu] in lab rats.
Just look at he data, since HFCS was introduced into the market in the early 1970's obesity rates have been going up at an alarming rate.
Just getting rid of the HFCS would be a huge step forward in combating the problem.
Make your voice heard, read the ingredients* and only buy products that use real sucrose, aka cane/beet sugar. The food and beverage manufacturers will get the message, using real sugar is more profitable to them than HFCS even if HFCS is cheaper per to use.
*watch out for products that use a combo of real sugar and artificial sweetners like sucralose to cut down on how much cane/beet sugar they actually used. The fake stuff will be near the end of the ingredient list.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday September 18 2021, @04:59AM (1 child)
or you could have better rules/laws [foodstandards.gov.au] about labelling ingredients that enable you to make informed decisions..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday September 18 2021, @06:44AM
Agreed.
but what I've seen food manufactures do is reduce the amount of real sugar in the product so the calories per serving goes down to where the product looks really good to someone counting their calories but then add an artificial sweetener to bring the product's perceived sweetness back up to where it was when a serving had twice the calories of the new formula. Since the product still has real sugar in it they don't have to label it as "sugar free" and can honestly say "reduced calories" or not even mention it at all. They are following the current labeling laws to the letter.
Where it is a major issue is that there are people, myself among them, who have adverse reactions to the artificial sweeteners being used by the industry. In the case of aspartame I get a migraine that puts me in bed for the rest of the day. Sucralose isn't as bad in that regard but it also leaves a nauseating aftertaste that will leave me wanting to regurgitate the contents of my stomach until the flavor fades. I've generally learned to just always read the labels VERY carefully. It is a real eye opener to see how many products contain something you don't expect in that group of foods.
If the laws also required warning labels to clearly state that the product contained an artificial sweetener I and others like me, or people just trying to avoid artificial sweeteners in general would be quite pleased.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @05:16PM (5 children)
It's ll the government money going to welfare mothers during the pandemic, who use it to buy large fries with extra lard for their children instead of buying healthy food like normal people would.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @09:22PM (4 children)
You should know that during particular age, kids are very picky with what they eat. French fries have been a blessing, because by and large kids will always eat them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @10:14PM
Well-bred children will eat what they're served.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @10:29PM
That's solved by beating them. /not even sarcastic
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 19 2021, @01:21AM
This "particular age" isn't responsible for your children being shitty eaters. YOU are.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday September 20 2021, @02:59PM
It's how you raise them and what you eat. In the event that you love McDonalds, Taco Bell, etc. They will love it. In the event that you prepare real food for you child and feed them real, good food. They will love it. They won't love everything, but don't sweat the small stuff. Teach them to try new things and they will surprise you as to what they will eat. I don't eat beets. My kid loves them. It certainly isn't, because I do. In the event that you didn't start from the very beginning, you're going to have a tough time.
Malnutrition happens in the USA, because "my kid won't eat anything" except French Fries and Chicken Nuggets. That is a diet that will kill. Not a diet that will help my kid be healthy and strong.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"