There are more obese children since the start of the pandemic, according to a study carried out in France

Cases of obesity and overweight have increased sharply among the youngest since the start of the health crisis, according to a study (PDF) conducted in Val-de-Marne and published by Public Health France on Tuesday April 26. “The increase in overweight or obese children increases significantly between the 2018-2019 reference year and the 2020-2021 school year”summarize the authors.

The latter examined the data of nearly 50,000 children attending kindergarten in this department, all aged 2 years and 8 months to 6 years. Although the scope of the study is limited by its geographical concentration, the breadth of this data allows reliable conclusions to be drawn at the scale of this territory.

These show that the proportion of obese children has almost doubled during the two years corresponding roughly to the start of the health crisis. It went from 2.8% to 4.6%. The rate of overweight children, a situation that covers broader criteria than obesity, has also increased, from 8.9% to 11.2%.

The authors hypothesize that the measures taken against Covid-19 – general confinement at first, then systematic school closures as soon as a case was reported – favored excessive weight gain in children. The study, which also notes that girls are more affected than boys, is however unable to explain this development.

“It would be interesting to know if it is rather the diet that has deteriorated – increased snacking, consumption of ultra-processed products – or the drastic reduction in activities.

Writers

in the Public Health France study

This work is in line with previous studies, including one published in the fall of 2021 by US health authorities. The latter had examined the data of more than 400,000 young people aged 2 to 19. This had concluded that their weight gain had on average been twice as fast since the start of the pandemic.