{"id":8780,"date":"2020-06-01T05:10:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-01T05:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.caresurgeryclinic.com\/beta2024\/?p=8780"},"modified":"2024-10-27T05:13:46","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T05:13:46","slug":"study-in-u-s-lockdowns-added-2-pounds-per-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caresurgeryclinic.com\/beta2024\/study-in-u-s-lockdowns-added-2-pounds-per-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: In U.S., Lockdowns Added 2 Pounds per Month"},"content":{"rendered":"
Americans gained nearly 2 pounds per month under COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders in 2020, according to a\u00a0new study<\/a>\u00a0published Monday in\u00a0JAMA Network Open<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Those who kept the same lockdown habits could have gained 20 pounds during the past year, the study authors said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that\u00a0weight gain<\/a>\u00a0is a public health problem in the U.S. already, so anything making it worse is definitely concerning, and shelter-in-place orders are so ubiquitous that the sheer number of people affected by this makes it extremely relevant,\u201d Gregory Marcus, MD, the senior author and a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco,\u00a0told\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

Marcus and colleagues analyzed more than 7,000\u00a0weight<\/a>\u00a0measurements from 269 people in 37 states who used Bluetooth-connected scales from Feb. 1 through June 1, 2020. Among the participants, about 52% were women, 77% were white, and they had an average age of 52.<\/p>\n

The research team found that participants had a steady weight gain of more than half a pound every 10 days. That equals about 1.5 to 2 pounds per month.<\/p>\n

Many of the participants were\u00a0losing weight<\/a>\u00a0before the shelter-in-place orders went into effect, Marcus told\u00a0The<\/em>Times<\/em>. The lockdown effects could be even greater for those who weren\u2019t losing weight before.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s reasonable to assume these individuals are more engaged with their health in general, and more disciplined and on top of things,\u201d he said. \u201cThat suggests we could be underestimating — that this is the tip of the iceberg.\u201d<\/p>\n

The small study doesn\u2019t represent all of the nation and can\u2019t be generalized to the U.S. population, the study authors noted, but it\u2019s an indicator of what happened during the\u00a0pandemic<\/a>. The participants\u2019 weight increased regardless of their location and chronic medical conditions.<\/p>\n

Overall, people don\u2019t move around as much during lockdowns, the UCSF researchers reported in\u00a0another study<\/a>\u00a0published in the\u00a0Annals of Internal Medicine<\/em>\u00a0in November 2020. According to smartphone data, daily step counts decreased by 27% in March 2020. The step counts increased again throughout the summer but still remained lower than before the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe detrimental health outcomes suggested by these data demonstrate a need to identify concurrent strategies to mitigate weight gain,\u201d the authors wrote in the latest\u00a0JAMA Network Open<\/em>\u00a0study, \u201csuch as encouraging healthy diets and exploring ways to enhance\u00a0physical activity<\/a>, as local governments consider new constraints in response to SARS-CoV-2 and potential future pandemics.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n