Abstract
Background: Home isolation during the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic lockdown strongly impacted everyday life, affecting, in particular, eating habits and everyday activity. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of the pandemic on behaviors and subsequent changes in body mass index (BMI) in children from Southern Poland. Methods: The study included 206 participants (104 females and 102 males) with a complete analysis of 177 participants (96 females and 81 males) with a mean age of 12.8 ± 2.6 years admitted to three pediatric endocrinology clinics (Rzeszów, Kraków, and Katowice) due to simple obesity, type 1 diabetes mellitus, somatotropin pituitary deficiency on growth hormone replacement therapy, and other endocrine and metabolic disorders between June and September 2020. The study used a self-prepared questionnaire regarding eating habits, physical activity, screen time, and sleep before and during the lockdown. Anthropometric measurements were performed under clinical settings twice (before the pandemic in January–March 2020, and in June–September 2020). Results: During the lockdown, BMI z-scores increased over the whole group, especially in obese children (0.073 ± 0.18, p = 0.002). The number of children who declared low and high physical activity of more than 60 min per day declined from 41.2% and 18.6% to 31.1% and 6.2% (p = 0.03 and p < 0.001), respectively; sleep times over 8 h increased (46.9% vs. 60.4% p = 0.007); screen times over 5 h daily increased (14.7% to 46.9%, p < 0.001). Eating habits did not change significantly. Conclusions: Daily physical activity and sleep levels were affected by the pandemic leading to the increase of BMI, especially in obese patients with endocrine disorders. During the COVID-19 pandemic, forward-thinking strategies must be developed to prevent childhood obesity.
Highlights
On 4 March 2020, the first confirmed case of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection was announced in Poland
The study was conducted in three tertiary pediatric endocrinology clinics in the south of Poland (Rzeszów, Kraków, and Katowice) among outpatients visiting endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolic disease units for treatment or management due to simple obesity, type 1 diabetes mellitus, somatotropin pituitary deficiency on growth hormone replacement therapy, and other endocrine and metabolic disorders (Table 1)
Most of the studied children live in rural areas and in small towns (n = 120; 68.2%) with garden area availability (n = 128; 72.7%)
Summary
On 4 March 2020, the first confirmed case of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection was announced in Poland. On 16 March, schools and kindergartens closed and subsequent restrictions were introduced in Poland. Studies conducted in many regions of the world affected by similar problems have shown that pandemic-related restrictions have been related unfavorably to movement behaviors of children and youth [1,2,3,4]. Home isolation strongly impacted everyday life, affecting, in particular, eating habits and everyday behaviors [5]. Home isolation during the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic lockdown strongly impacted everyday life, affecting, in particular, eating habits and everyday activity. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of the pandemic on behaviors and subsequent changes in body mass index (BMI) in children from Southern Poland. The study used a self-prepared questionnaire regarding eating habits, physical activity, screen time, and sleep before and during the lockdown. The number of children who declared low and high physical activity of more than 60 min per day declined from 41.2%
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