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Food and Health Fact #131
Fact #131: Weight gain among American children during Covid
By Matthew Rees
Food and Health Fact #131: Weight gain among American children during Covid
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More evidence has come in about American children realizing weight gain during Covid-19. A CDC study involving more than 430,000 children aged 2-19 showed that the rate at which they gained weight doubled during the first nine months of the pandemic, compared to the pre-pandemic period. The highest rate of weight gain was among children aged 6-11, while children who were already obese when the pandemic began gained about one pound per month – a rate of weight gain five times higher than before the pandemic. The weight gain has come against the backdrop of extremely poor metabolic health among American children, with the CDC reporting that 18 percent of those aged 12-18 were already pre-diabetic in 2016.
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