Soaring Childhood Obesity After COVID-19 Lockdowns Poses Lifelong Health Threat: Study

Children who developed health problems related to obesity during COVID-19 lockdowns face “lifelong health consequences,” researchers have warned. Obesity levels among children aged 10 and 11 in England have rocketed between 2019 and 2021 and have not returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to new research. During this period, most children were home schooled owing to school closures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. This had a profound impact on children’s health, a study by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Southampton Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) and University of Southampton showed. Researchers analysed health data of over a million children in England and reported that obesity rose by 45 percent in reception-aged pupils between 2019–2020 and 2020–2021....