As the nation and world continues to see a rise in COVID-19 cases, we are seeing many major cities and states being forced to shut down schools and small businesses including restaurants, bars, gyms, and schools. With being faced with a difficult decision in regards to re-opening America, many local and national leaders have turned to adding restrictions to limit total occupancy, mandating social distancing and masks and other sanitization requirements to help stop the spread of COVID-19. Many doctors, health experts, and government leaders agree that these policies will help to flatten the curve and lower the infection rates of COVID-19. Although that may be true, as we dive deeper into the statistical data of new cases, we see mounting evidence that people with underlying medication conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and other chronic disease are at a much higher risk to get COVID-19 and suffer complications from it.
In fact, many new COVID-19 studies show that those with any chronic health problems — such as heart disease, diabetes, lung or kidney disease, or cancer — make up about 1/3 of the confirmed cases. But they account for more than 2/3 of the hospitalizations.
With a world that has seen its obesity rates sky rocket to over 650 million, community leaders should be turning to local health clubs, gyms, and personal trainers to combat COVID-19 and to help flatten a much larger “curve” that plagues this nation and the rest of the world.
Below are some obesity statistics from the World Heath Organization and CDC:
- Worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975.
- 8 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2019.
- In 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Of these over 650 million were obese.
- From 1999–2000 through 2017–2018, the age-adjusted prevalence of obesity increased from 30.5% to 42.4%, and the prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7% to 9.2%.
- Obesity is also associated with the leading causes of death in the United States and worldwide, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and some types of cancer.
Data Sources:
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight
https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
