Did Youth Experience Pandemic-Associated Weight Gain, Too?

Although weight gain during the pandemic has been observed in adults, empiric evidence is lacking about whether youth have been similarly affected. Using Kaiser Permanente Southern California electronic health record data, investigators studied youths 5 to 17 years old who had ≥1 pre-pandemic and ≥1 pandemic office-based body-mass index (BMI) measurements to assess changes in weight associated with the pandemic.

Of a total of 191,509 youths, 49.6% were female, mean age was 11.6 years, and mean pre-pandemic BMI was 20.7. Ten percent were Asian and Pacific Islander, 50% Hispanic, 7% non-Hispanic Black, and 25% non-Hispanic white.

After adjusting for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, the respective major weight-related findings by a…