Health

COVID-19 stress blamed the majority of Canadians gaining weight

If you’ve experienced unwanted weight changes over the past year, top food economists believe you’re not alone.

A new study by Agri-Food Analytics Lab Free press Prior to today’s widespread release, three in five Canadians have worn more than a few pounds in the past year. This is mainly due to the stress of COVID-19.

Researchers surveyed about 10,000 people from state to state this month, asking about their health and eating habits, and measuring how well they have dealt with the stress caused by the public health crisis.

Sylvain Charlevoix, a food management professor at Dalhousie University, who led the study with a team of experts, said:

“Obviously, as people deal with stress about everything around them, their diet has changed, and even while we take COVID health precautions seriously, Canadians We put the health aspects of their diet in the back seats. ”

While it’s normal for someone to gain weight as they get older, as someone gets older, the turnover of lipid metabolism in adipose tissue decreases, but people across the country say, “It’s less desirable than any time I’ve ever seen. Unintentionally, I’m gaining weight.

In fact, researchers believe that young people are affected at a greater rate than older generations. Results also vary not only by age, but also by gender and geographic location.

A total of 83% of millennials and 82% of Gen Z believe they are more stressed than they were before the pandemic, and as a result they tend to eat more and light meals. In contrast, 78% of Generation X and 68% of baby boomers shared these feelings.

Women (53%) are more likely to eat stress than men (47.1%). In addition, 76% of women say they have gained some weight compared to 71% of men.

Charboa attributed many of these trends to the lack of normal routine structures during a pandemic, and states that only 8.8% of Canadians were able to properly manage their meal times. He also said that lack of exercise and regular activity had a significant impact.

“Many of us lost our daily diet because we weren’t doing what we were used to. This is still entirely new and changes every month or week,” he said. It was. “Meal planning and management is completely out of the gate, because you don’t know if you’re physically supposed to go to work or school or not.”

However, the most important personal stressor that contributed to weight change was self-isolation from friends and family. A total of 67% of Canadians consider this to be the main reason they hit the fridge to eat stress during a long-term seizure of loneliness.

“There are so many layers here, which makes sense why you need comfort through comfort food when you’re lonely,” says Charlebois.

The states with the highest number of people who believe their diet has changed are Newfoundland and Labrador (84%), followed by Nova Scotia (81%) and Ontario (74%).

Manitoba is one of the low weight rungs, with 59% of people reporting changes. Of the respondents in the state, 39.3% increased by £ 6 to £ 8 from last spring. 14.3 percent increased between £ 11 and £ 15. And 12.8 percent increased from 16 to 20 pounds.

“In the end, one thing is clear: people will continue to suffer from eating habits until the end of the pandemic,” said Charlebois. “And if we don’t start working on this now at the individual and collective levels, all of this will come back to bite us.”

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Twitter: @temurdur

Temur Durrani
Reporter

Temur Durrani reports on the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Winnipeg Free Press. Funding for this free press press is provided by the Government of Canada through a local journalism initiative.

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COVID-19 stress blamed the majority of Canadians gaining weight

Health

COVID-19 stress blamed the majority of Canadians gaining weight

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