Childhood Obesity May Increase Due to School Closures

According to a new study, if school closures continue until December, the childhood obesity rate in the US may increase by 2.4 percent. 

Assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, Ruopeng An, said that due to the closure of schools nationwide, children in the US had missed opportunities to participate in physical education and other school-based physical activities like recess and after-school sports programs. 

Apart from that, the stay-at-home orders have caused the closure of parks and outdoor recreation areas across the states, which have limited the children's physical activity opportunities outdoors. Hence, they are less likely to make up for the activities missed. 

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(Photo : unsplash/Ivan Aleksic)

Since March 13 to 23, most states have issued these orders, and currently, all the 50 states and Washington, DC, have also followed suit on school closures. An said that to date, not one state has lifted school closure orders, and in most places, the closures will likely continue for the whole academic year 2019 - 2020. 

He said that it is unclear whether the schools would reopen after the summer break because the decisions will base on how the COVID-19 pandemic progresses in the coming months. 

Childhood obesity increased

Over the past decades, childhood obesity in the US has increased three-fold. An said that 18.5 percent or 13.7 million children ages 2 to 19 had obesity in 2017 to 2018, and one of the major behavioral risk factors is lacking in physical activity. 

He said that "The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans'" recommendation is that children should have 60 minutes or more of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily. Adding to that, he also said that more than three-quarters of American children do not meet the guidelines. In the meantime, approximately half of the US children spend more than two hours a day in sedentary behavior. 

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(Photo: pexels/Anthony)

Childhood obesity and pandemic

He used a microsimulation model for his study to project the change in the BMI of the US children and childhood obesity during the pandemic. He focused on the different future scenarios involving school closures and changes in social norms and how they impact the children's daily activity level. 

The model predicted that there could be a 0.64 percent increase in childhood obesity for two-month school closure. If the school closure continues until December 2020 due to COVID-19, there would be an increase of 2.4 percent in the childhood obesity rate. 

By March 2021, there will be about 1.27 million new cases of childhood obesity due to the pandemic. 

Health disparities need to be addressed

The study found that childhood obesity is more significant among boys and non-Hispanic blacks, and Hispanics, compared with girls and non-Hispanic whites, respectively. An said that they need to address the increasing health disparities due to COVID-19. 

Read also: How to Prevent Childhood Obesity

The problem is that for the coming months or longer, a large percentage of the US children may not resume their physical activities fully because of the closure of public spaces and facilities. He said that public health interventions are urgently promoting an active lifestyle for children to mitigate the adverse effects of childhood obesity.