Abstract
The lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic affects lifestyle patterns globally and impacts children and adolescents. This study aims to assess the effect of the lockdown on body weight, eating habits, and physical activity of Jordanian youth (children and adolescents). A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 477 Jordanian children and adolescents aged 6-17 y. The study tool was a structured validated questionnaire. It comprised 4 parts, including a general description of the study purpose, sociodemographic and anthropometric data, physical activity data, and food intake pattern. Questions were reported before and during lockdown. Changes in outcomes over the 2 study time points were evaluated. After the lockdown period, the mean body weight and body mass index for age Z-scores (BAZ) showed a significant increase (P < 0.001) compared with before the lockdown period. More than 50% of the subjects reported that they spent more than 3 h in front of the screen during the lockdown. The percent of subjects who watched TV for more than 3h was increased. Moreover, physical inactivity was increased significantly during the lockdown. All food groups consumption was significantly increased during the lockdown compared to before the lockdown. COVID-19 lockdown period was characterized by an increase in the use of screen-based devices, lower physical activity, uncontrolled food intake, and weight gain.
Highlights
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), first reported in December 2019 in China, rapidly spread outside China and the Asian countries
As far as the Z-score values are concerned, the height-for-age Z-scores (HAZ) values showed that 86.9% of children and 93.9% of adolescents were of normal height and the rest were divided into 2 categories: stunting and severely stunting
It was noticed that 86% of the adolescents did not watch TV during lockdown compared with 37.5% before lockdown, while the results showed no difference in children group
Summary
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), first reported in December 2019 in China, rapidly spread outside China and the Asian countries. On March 2020, it was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization.[1,2] Under these conditions, many countries were forced to adopt strict public health measures with the appearance of their first cases and the declaration of lockdown strategies at the local and international levels, to slow down the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. Following that was a forced quarantine at home to an estimated 4 billion people,[3] which has had negative health impacts with substantial morbidity and mortality rates.[4] Globally, the negative effects of the COVID-19 heath impacts expanded to include social and economic impacts, accompanied with sudden discontinuation of school programs for children and adolescents
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