While obesity is growing around the world, it is especially evident in younger generations, who used to be thinner than their thick-around-the-middle elders. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, almost 1 in every 3 college-age Americans is now obese—the “freshman 15” has morphed into the “freshman 30.”
Children are also becoming obese, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made things worse. The BMJ reported: “Among a cohort of 432 302 people aged 2-19 years, the rate of body mass index (BMI) increase roughly doubled during the pandemic compared with the period preceding it. The greatest increases were seen in children aged 6-11 and in those already overweight before the pandemic.”
