{"id":14613,"date":"2020-10-15T15:43:27","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T15:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/?p=14613"},"modified":"2020-10-23T11:16:50","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T11:16:50","slug":"covid19-raising-obesity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/covid19-raising-obesity\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 increasing health concerns about obesity"},"content":{"rendered":"

COVID-19 increasing health concerns about obesity<\/strong>
\nBy Nailah John, Program Associate<\/p>\n

The pandemic has brought many countries to a standstill, restricting movement, necessitating social distancing, and impeding economic activities across a broad spectrum of nonessential occupations. It\u2019s also resulted in many people changing their habits, including changes in food consumption, physical activity, and an increase in people working from home, which may exacerbate current levels of obesity.<\/p>\n

Obesity is a major concern here in the United States and worldwide. The World Health Organization<\/a> defines obesity as \u201cabnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health.\u201d In 2016, the World Health Organization released data that showed 650 million adults were obese, and in 2019, an estimated 38.2 million children under the age of 5 were overweight and obese. In the United States, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that, in 2019, the obesity rate surpassed the 40 percent mark and reached 42.4 percent.<\/p>\n

Since the pandemic began, there have been dozens of studies reported that many patients who become sick with COVID-19 are obese. In an article in the journal Obesity Reviews, an international team of researchers compiled data from scores of peer-reviewed papers capturing 399,000 patients. The findings indicated that individuals with obesity suffer from metabolic dysfunction and low-grade inflammation, which are considerable factors in the manifestation of severe lung diseases. The primary cause of COVID-19 mortality is susceptibility to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) which is more likely in obese individuals. The review goes on further to state that \u201cbeing an individual with obesity independently increases the risk of influenza morbidity and mortality, most likely through impairments in innate and adaptive immune responses. Potentially the vaccines developed to address COVID-19 will be less effective for individuals with obesity due to a weakened immune response.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wiley Public Health Emergency Collection found that obesity increases vulnerability to infections and is a risk factor to COVID-19-related mortality. Body mass index (BMI) was significantly higher in patients with a severe form of Covid-19 infections. Being obese increases the odds of COVID-19 patients being hospitalized. The Wiley Public Health Emergency Collection highlighted that COVID-19 patients with obesity were hospitalized more than those without obesity. According to a report that looked at 5,700 COVID-19 patients with obesity in New York City, whereas 22 percent of the population is obese, they make up 41.7 percent of hospitalized patients.<\/p>\n

Prevalence of obesity in the United States is increasing yearly, and there is a dire need for this health issue to be curbed. It will take efforts at the federal, state, and local level. Therefore, it is paramount that each individual engages in healthy eating habits, eats the right portion sizes, engages in physical activity, and encourages others.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[287,416,16],"tags":[317,355],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14613"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14613"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15459,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14613\/revisions\/15459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}