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Pandemic + Child Obesity = Even Worse News for Young Adults

Widespread child obesity, i.e., continual inactivity & unhealthy nutrition in childhood, turns out to be even more dangerous than previously thought--now that we are in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

The New York Times recently described several studies showing the high risks facing obese young adults from coronavirus infection.  

(This is in addition to the shocking news last year from Johns Hopkins, that obesity will soon replace smoking as the biggest preventable cause of cancer!)

Child health habits turn into lifelong destiny: the vast majority of children who are obese, remain so as adults. And it gets worse: for about half of children who are obese, child obesity turns into teen severe obesity. This dangerous trend continues later in life: by 2030, almost 1/3 lower-income adults are expected, "with high predictive accuracy," to be severely obese (>75 lbs. overweight).

If there is any good news from the pandemic...perhaps it will raise consciousness on just how disastrous it is to continue to ignore unhealthy habits begun early in life.  We hope that this will be a silver-lining in the dark coronavirus cloud. 

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