Black, Hispanic children gained more excess weight than white children during COVID-19
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School-aged children gained more excess weight during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the year prior, with a greater degree of weight gain observed among Black and Hispanic children, according to data published in Obesity.
“Our study focused on weight gain among children during the pandemic. It showed that Black and Latino children gained more weight than white children,” Corinna Koebnick, PhD, research scientist in the department of research and evaluation at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, told Healio. “Our study does not reveal what caused the weight gain, although the authors suspect that the additional disadvantages more likely to affect children of color, like living in low-income neighborhoods with fewer parks, may be associated with even higher weight gain.”
Koebnick and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study of children aged 5 to 17 years who had a health plan membership with Kaiser Permanente Southern California during 2020 and in the 24 months before March 2020. BMI was extracted from electronic medical records. Researchers calculated the absolute difference from median BMI for age and sex for each participant before the COVID-19 pandemic using data from March 2019 to January 2020 and during the pandemic from March 2020 to January 2021. Mixed-effects models were used to estimate the difference in distance from median BMI from before to during the pandemic.
The cohort included 160,472 children (50.7% Hispanic, 25.2% white, 6.9% Black, 10.4% Asian/Pacific Islander), of which 39.2% had overweight, obesity or severe obesity before the pandemic.
The cohort had a higher distance from median BMI during the pandemic compared with before the pandemic. Researchers observed a 1.72 kg/m2 increase among Hispanic children and a 1.7 kg/m2 increase among Black children, both greater than the 1.16 kg/m2 increase observed among white children.
“The pandemic may have exacerbated already existing racial and social disparities and placed children of color at higher risk for conditions associated with excess weight gain, like diabetes and high blood pressure,” Koebnick said.
Children aged 5 to 11 years with state-subsidized health insurance had an increase in distance from median BMI by 1.39 kg/m2 compared with a 1.16 kg/m2 increase for those with commercial or private health insurance. Children across all ages living in a neighborhood with at least two parks gained less excess body weight during the pandemic than those living in neighborhoods with one park or no parks, the researchers wrote.
The absolute excess increase in obesity prevalence among those aged 5 to 11 years was 7% for Black children and 8.2% for Hispanic children, greater than the absolute excess increase of 5.3% for white children. No significant difference in the increase in excess obesity prevalence was observed among older age groups. The change in obesity prevalence from pre-pandemic to during the pandemic did not differ by health insurance status, according to the researchers.
Koebnick said more research is needed to analyze the weight trajectories of children during the lockdown and to identify those who are continuing to struggle with weight gain.
For more information:
Corinna Koebnick, PhD, can be reached at corinna.koebnick@kp.org.
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