since the confinements, the number of obese or overweight French people has increased significantly

The compulsory sedentary lifestyle during Covid-19 caused many French people to gain a lot of weight and made those who had overcome obesity regain it. This is the case of Christelle, a resident of Seine-et-Marne, who had already undergone a stomach reduction operation in 2016, long before the Covid-19 crisis.

She thought she was done with her weight problems, but during confinement, this bank employee found herself like everyone else, stuck at home. “When I found myself confined, alone with myself, I was all alone with food. I had no more hours, no rhythm. I ate everything, large quantities”, she testifies. And even once deconfined, Christelle kept this habit of eating more than before.

“There was a craze in the summer of 2020. We were all happy to meet again, it was barbecue and festivities. So, we eat.”

Christine, 40 years old

at franceinfo

“The taste pleasure was there, everyone was preparing to eat and we all received each other”, continues Christelle. And a few months later, the young woman finds herself in the same situation as before her operation. “It happened to me that I turned 40 in December 2020 and I realized that the clothes I wanted to put on for my birthday party, I didn’t fit into them at all”, she confides annoyed. She had regained the 20 kilos she had lost.

Massive teleworking for a large part of the employees has favored this phenomenon and this increase in obesity, explains doctor Géraldine Scurnik who observed it in the Ramsay Santé clinic in Paris. “Patients sometimes do not allow themselves to take breaks and say to themselves: here, my working day is over. They describe meals sometimes eaten extremely quickly where they do not take the time to have things cooked, vegetables, fruit.”

“Patients say they eat ‘what’s lying around’ in front of the computer.”

Dr Geraldine Scurnik

at franceinfo

Another consequence of teleworking is a lack of exercise. “We lost this movement that we made to go to work and to come back from workexplains Géraldine Scurnik. It’s not really physical activity but it generates an energy expenditure which represents about 10% to 20% of what we spend completely on a day. And it is not insignificant to withdraw 10% of energy expenditure on a daily basis.

If telework is less and less the norm, the habits acquired are difficult to break. The figures are worrying: a quarter of European adults are obese, a condition considered responsible for 200,000 new cancers per year and 13% of deaths in Europe. And the WHO predicts that the number of obese or overweight people will continue to increase in the coming years.