This is perhaps the most unanticipated result of anything that's ever happened in human history:
Key physical health metrics have notably worsened since before the COVID-19 pandemic, including obesity, diabetes and eating habits.
The percentage of U.S. adults whom Gallup classifies as obese has reached an estimated 38.4%, up 6.0 percentage points since 2019 and just shy of the record high of 39.9% measured in 2022.
A new high of 13.6% of respondents say they have been diagnosed by a medical professional with diabetes, up 1.1 points since 2019.
Mind. Blown.
It's real, baby. Here are Gallup's graphs. Notice the distinct spike in obesity. When did that start occurring? Hmm.
Perhaps it wasn't the smartest move in the world to just throw everyone in their homes for months and months on end, closing down gyms and even city parks, and essentially directing people to just sit in front of streaming services for hours and hours per day?
All of that stress predictably led to excesses of junk food binging:
The percentage of adults who report eating healthy the prior day has dropped 5.0 points since 2019, from 51.7% to 46.7%, with particularly large declines in healthy eating among those aged 30 to 44 (down 9.2 points).
Lock people in their homes and tell them the world is ending and they might suffer a hideously painful death from a respiratory virus, and they're probably gonna stress-eat.
"Much of the recent increase in obesity," Gallup noted drily, "may be associated with modified health behaviors resulting from the pandemic."
I would kindly suggest that the next time a virus starts spreading around the world, whatever else we do, we don't do... well, what we did.
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