by Eric Lendrum
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), childhood obesity rates skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic to “substantial and alarming” levels, as reported by Fox News.
The CDC’s findings, released on Thursday, determined that increases in obesity were most prevalent among children who were already overweight before the pandemic started, but found a “profound increase in weight gain for kids” across the board. Overall, the study determined that 22 percent of American children and teenagers were obese in August of 2020, which marked an increase of 3 percent from August of 2019.
Also reported by the study was that children who had previously been gaining weight at a healthy rate of 3.4 pounds a year prior to the pandemic had gained an average of 5.4 pounds over the course of the pandemic. Among children who were “moderately obese,” expected weight gains rose from 6.5 pounds to 12 pounds after the pandemic started. Children in the “severely obese” category saw their expected weight gains rise from 8.8 pounds to 14.6 pounds.
The most dramatic increase by age group was among children between 6 and 11 years old, with the CDC strongly suggesting that this was directly influenced by the postponing of in-person learning in favor of remote learning at home, reducing students’ physical activity across the country.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, children and adolescents spent more time than usual away from structured school settings,” the CDC said in its statement on the findings, “and families who were already disproportionately affected by obesity risk factors might have had additional disruptions in income, food, and other social determinants of health.”
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Eric Lendrum reports for American Greatness.
This is good news for BIG PHARMA for sure. We do not have a HEALTH care system, but rather a profitable SICK care system run by Corporate Hospitals and Big Pharma who prop up politicians with Campaign Funds. If our public officials were truly concerned for the health care of our citizenry, then public gymnasiums and public pools would be attached to every public library in the United States. The Greeks gave us the Olympics. The Romans gave us the aqueducts. Public fountains and public wash stations would be more effective than running around with masks on. In my years working in the emergency room I discovered that America was in need of a bath.