Advertisement

How Losing Weight Could Help In The Fight Against Covid-19

We’re here to guide you through the coronavirus pandemic. Sign up to the Life newsletter for daily tips, advice, how-tos and escapism.

Losing weight could help protect people if there’s a second wave of coronavirus, it’s been reported – but is this actually the case?

Dr Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer for England, appeared on ITV’s This Morning on Wednesday to discuss the risk of a second wave. “Myself and colleagues are very, very concerned about looking for a potential second peak as we move into the autumn,” she said.

While her key message was to continue washing hands, keep social interactions down, and be careful when visiting public spaces, she also said there are other learnings in terms of who is at risk, singling out obesity.

“Obesity is actually problematic and that’s one of the things that we could do something about,” she said. While she didn’t expand on what we could do about it, publications took it as a red light to tell people to lose weight.

Related...

What is obesity?

Obesity impacts one in four adults and one in five children, and is characterised by abnormal or excessive fat in the body that presents a risk to people’s health. Those impacted tend to have a higher than average body mass index (BMI) – 25 to 29.9 is classed as ‘overweight’, 30 to 39.9 is classed as ‘obese’, and 40 or above as ‘severely obese’.

But BMI can’t measure obesity alone, as some muscular people have a high BMI without having much body fat. Generally, men with a waist size of 94cm or more and women with a waist size of 80cm or more are considered more likely to develop obesity-related health problems, states the NHS.

There are hundreds of factors that can contribute to weight gain, some of which are out of a person’s control – for example, underlying...

Continue reading on HuffPost