So it turns out that—and stay with me here, because this is a bombshell—when you shut down schools, shutter playgrounds, and lock kids inside for well over a year, they get really unhealthy:

Among a cohort of 432,302 persons aged 2–19 years, the rate of body mass index (BMI) increase approximately doubled during the pandemic compared to a prepandemic period. Persons with prepandemic overweight or obesity and younger school-aged children experienced the largest increases...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, children and adolescents spent more time than usual away from structured school settings, and families who were already disproportionally affected by obesity risk factors might have had additional disruptions in income, food, and other social determinants of health. As a result, children and adolescents might have experienced circumstances that accelerated weight gain, including increased stress, irregular mealtimes, less access to nutritious foods, increased screen time, and fewer opportunities for physical activity (e.g., no recreational sports).

Wow, isn't that wild? Who would've thought that ceasing virtually all social activity, banning sports, and piling unprecedented levels of stress on young people would lead to less health instead of more?

If only we had a robust and active public health sector that could have totally foreseen this!