Potato chips, red meat, and sugary drinks
Other researchers have assessed how healthy behaviors tended to take a turn for the worse when routines were disrupted during the pandemic. Steven B. Heymsfield, MD, a professor in the metabolism and body composition laboratory at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University System, Baton Rouge, and collaborators documented how diet and activity changed for children during the pandemic.
Dr. Heymsfield worked with researchers in Italy to examine changes in behavior among 41 children and adolescents with obesity in Verona, Italy, during an early lockdown.
As part of a longitudinal observational study, they had baseline data about diet and physical activity from interviews conducted from May to July 2019. They repeated the interviews 3 weeks after a mandatory quarantine.
Intake of potato chips, red meat, and sugary drinks had increased, time spent in sports activities had decreased by more than 2 hours per week, and screen time had increased by more than 4 hours per day, the researchers found. Their study was published in Obesity.
Unpublished follow-up data indicate that “there was further deterioration in the diets and activity patterns” for some but not all of the participants, Dr. Heymsfield said.
He said he was hopeful that children who experienced the onset of obesity during the pandemic may lose weight when routines return to normal, but added that it is unclear whether that will happen.
“My impression from the limited written literature on this question is that for some kids who gain weight during the lockdown or, by analogy, the summer months, the weight doesn’t go back down again. It is not universal, but it is a known phenomenon that it is a bit of a ratchet,” he said. “They just sort of slowly ratchet their weights up, up to adulthood.”
Recognizing weight gain during the pandemic may be an important first step.
“The first thing is not to ignore it,” Dr. Heymsfield said. “Anything that can be done to prevent excess weight gain during childhood – not to promote anorexia or anything like that, but just being careful – is very important, because these behaviors are formed early in life, and they persist.”
CHOP supported the research. Dr. Jenssen and Dr. Hassink have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Heymsfield is a medical adviser for Medifast, a weight loss company.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.