Pediatricians and public fitness experts expect a potentially dramatic rise in obesity in the formative years this year as the months of a food pandemic, schools closed, blocked sports, and restrictions of public areas continue indefinitely.
Approximately one in seven young people have met the obesity criteria for years of training since 2016, when the Federal National Child Health Survey replaced their methodology, he revealed a report published Wednesday through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
While the percentage of young people believed to be obese has declined over the past 10 years, it is expected to increase by 2020.
“We have made slow and steady progress so far,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an economist and professor at Northwestern University. “Chances are we’ve erased much of the progress we’ve made over the past decade in the box of the formative years of obesity. “
The trend, already observed in pediatric consultations, is of particular concern, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded this week its definition of others with the highest threat of severe COVID-19 disease and death to accompany others with a framework. mass index of between 25 and 30. Previously, only others with a BMI of 30 or more were incorporated. This may mean that 72% of all Americans have a higher threat of serious illness just because of their weight.
Obesity is a major factor for almost all chronic diseases that make COVID-19 more dangerous, adding diabetes and hypertension. Center for Disease and Cancer. And obesity in the formative years is one of the main predictors of obesity in the future.
The BMI takes into account weight and height when measuring body fat; however, according to the National Institutes of Health, you would possibly overestimate body fat in other muscle-built people and underestimate it in those who have lost muscle.
Children “gain significantly weight,” dr. Lisa Denike, president of pediatrics at Northwest Permanente in Portland, Oregon. “We’ve noticed that children gain 10 to 20 pounds in a year, that they might have had bMI when they were tweened in the 50th or 75th percentile and are now in the 95th percentile. This is a significant change from percentiles to obesity. “
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Denike said an 11-year-old patient on his recent physical gained 40 pounds. Rates of type 2 diabetes in childhood are on the rise, and even though the child doesn’t have it now, Denike said, “I suspect you’ll have it in the next few years because your parents already have it. Array”.
“He’s at home in an environment that suffers with parents who have the same disorders as learning physical elegance and outdoor activities,” he says. “Children are a mirror image of what their parents do. “
The disparities in obesity rates in the formaty years have been around for decades and now reflect the disproportionate way COVID-19 affects other people of color and low-income people, said Jamie Bussel, program manager at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
“In any case, these effects reflect decades of disinversion in express communities and express teams of people, motivated by systemic racism and discrimination that still prevail in our society,” he said.
Young people from families with incomes below the federal poverty line are more than twice as likely to be obese than those with incomes, according to the RWJF report. obesity, adding poverty and disparities in fitness, Bussel said.
“We know that families move to lower quality foods when faced with food insecurity, i. e. more caloric and less varied foods,” Schanzenbach said.
Childhood obesity levels range from 11% in high-income families to about 20% in low- and middle-income families, Dacones said, contributing to the highest rates of obesity in black and Hispanic populations, which come with more low-income people. California, for example, noted that the number of others classified as food insecure increased from one in nine to one in six.
A report published in July through researchers at Northwestern University found that more than 41% of black families with young children experienced a lack of food confidence between April 23 and June 23, compared to just under 40% of Hispanic families and just over 23% of white families. Rates have declined for black and Hispanic families since then, but have remained unchanged for white families.
“Even if it’s not as bad as at the peak of the pandemic, rates of lack of confidence in food remain terrible,” Schanzenbach said.
Those who examine food insecurity, intellectual fitness and physical fitness say that trends already moving in that direction are alarming now.
Jim Baugh is the founder and president of PHIT America, who circulated a petition starting in August to require 30 minutes of recreation at least 3 times a week for all students. He points out that almost part of the number one schools have no physical education and that “children are more sedentary than ever. “The United States ranks 47th out of 50 countries in the world in terms of children’s fitness.
Dr. Zhen Yan, a researcher at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, has studied the role of exercise in reducing the effects of COVID-19 and agrees that more needs to be done to develop child activity.
“If we want our young people to suffer from the fatal COVID-19, we want to increase their physical activity and make them healthier,” Yan said. “Too many young people already suffer from pre-existing diseases such as obesity. “
Young adults who have experienced stigma and weight abuse are more likely to have a “greater vulnerability to distress” and poor food behavior during the pandemic, university of Connecticut researchers concluded in a study published in Annals of Medicine Behavioral. Eating the pandemic was nearly 3 times higher for those who had experienced the weight stigma before the pandemic than for those who did not. The effects were true for both men and women.
Denike said the “mental fitness crisis” that existed before the pandemic intensified and contributed to an increase in the number of patients with eating disorders.
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Other young people at risk of eating disorders “are looking for spaces to manage moments of stress,” Denike said. They have a “limited menu of options” when they are kids, he says, so it is convenient to restrict or abuse food.
With many more people feeling the misery of social isolation, there is more threat to others who “had a safe tendency to use food for not-so-good things,” dr. Imelda Dacones, executive director of Northwest Permanente. ” Push young people and adults alike to do more bad things. “
The National Association of Eating Disorders reported that approximately 80% accumulated in monthly calls and online discussions about the pandemic compared to the same months last year.
Social isolation has not replaced Tierney Sadler, a home-based marketing company in Alexandria, Virginia, who said he was “morbidly obese” and weighed about 45 kilos more than he deserved, but can easily identify with young people. who are suffering today, because her weight disorders as a child were a constant fear of her circle of relatives and a source of stress, which only made her eat more, she said.
“I was never going to be smart enough and I couldn’t get rid of him,” said Sadler, 57, who was in kindergarten. the only big boy, that’s a lot for you.
Parents, however, can help, he says, by protecting young people from domestic stress.
“Food is one of the tactics we convince ourselves,” Sadler said. “There are many things that young people absorb from their parents, who would possibly be unemployed and terrified of total COVID. Their pores are so wide they can suck, all that negative energy.
Contact Jayne O’Donnell on social media at @JayneODonnell or jodonnel@usatoday. com
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