Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Sep;16(9):469-470.
doi: 10.1038/s41574-020-0387-z.

Will the COVID-19 pandemic worsen the obesity epidemic?

Christoffer Clemmensen  1 , Michael Bang Petersen  2 , Thorkild I A Sørensen  3   4
Affiliations
Review

Will the COVID-19 pandemic worsen the obesity epidemic?

Christoffer Clemmensen et al. Nat Rev Endocrinol. 2020 Sep.

Abstract

The sudden outbreak and global spread of COVID-19 represents one of the most profound societal and public health challenges in modern times. In this Comment, we call attention to the possibility that the societal strategies implemented to oppose COVID-19 might have long-term, negative effects on the obesity epidemic.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Proposed mechanisms by which the societal strategies used to combat COVID-19 might worsen the occurrence of metabolic diseases.
Societal interventions against COVID-19 might trigger a series of psychobiological mechanisms that accelerate obesity occurrence and increase the risk of developing obesity-linked comorbidities.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Iversen, T. & Soskice, D. Democracy and prosperity: Reinventing capitalism through a turbulent century (Princeton University Press, 2019).
    1. Schwartz MW, et al. Obesity pathogenesis: an Endocrine Society scientific statement. Endocr. Rev. 2017;38:267–296. doi: 10.1210/er.2017-00111. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Darmon N, Drewnowski A. Does social class predict diet quality? Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 2008;87:1107–1117. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/87.5.1107. - DOI - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization. Mental health and psychosocial considerations during the COVID-19 outbreak. WHOhttps://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-MentalHealth-2020.1 (2020).
    1. Bjorntorp P. Do stress reactions cause abdominal obesity and comorbidities? Obes. Rev. 2001;2:73–86. doi: 10.1046/j.1467-789x.2001.00027.x. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types