Childhood obesity among ‘long-term consequences’ of coronavirus lockdown, experts say

The coronavirus pandemic and kids stuck at home could lead to another major issue, experts say: childhood obesity.

Andrew Rundle, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said “there could be long-term consequences for weight gained while children are out of school during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“Research shows that weight gained over the summer months is maintained during the school year and accrues summer to summer,” said Rundle, whose research appeared in the Obesity Society’s journal. “When a child experiences obesity, even at a young age, they are at risk for higher, unhealthy weight, all the way into middle age.”

Food insecurity contributes to the risk of obesity and weight gain, the researcher said, whose projections found that three days of school closures in Philadelphia would result in 405,000 missed meals for school-age children.

The pandemic could lead to food industry supply chains “drying up,” which in turn could lead to the price of healthy food increasing, said James Toop, chief executive of anti-childhood obesity campaign Bite Back 2030.

He told United Kingdom publication iNews that parents could have more difficulty purchasing healthy foods for their families as salaries are cut and income is lost.

“How we stop people from moving to unhealthy, low-cost processed foods and actually keep healthy diets though this is going to be really important,” Toop said.

Unicef offered tips for healthy eating during the outbreak, including keeping up fruit and vegetable intake, swapping dried or canned alternatives when fresh produce is unavailable and making cooking and eating a family activity.

Screen time time is also associated with childhood obesity, Rundle said.

It’s likely that children will spend 2.5 to 3.5 times more hours in front of screens than they would prior to the pandemic, Dylan Collins, CEO of internet safety company SuperAwesome, told Axios.

“The phenomenon of physical play being translated into a digital forum is something that we’re just beginning to see, and it’s hard to know exactly how that plays out in the next few weeks,” Collins said.

Jenny Radesky, a development behavioral pediatrician, gave advice to parents from the American Academy of Pediatrics in a Twitter thread about screen time. She said it’s important for parents to make a plan about their daily schedules and to set limits.