Kaiser Permanente Study Finds Youth Weight Gain Throughout the Pandemic

A child wears a face mask while attending an online class at a learning hub inside the Crenshaw Family YMCA during the Covid-19 pandemic in Los Angeles, Calif., on Feb. 17, 2021. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

PASADENA, Calif.—A Kaiser Permanente study of nearly 200,000 Southern California children found that children gained excess weight during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially those between the ages of 5 and 11, according to results released Sept. 27.

“When we compared the weight gain among children from 2019 to 2020, we found that there was more weight gained during the pandemic for youths of all ages,” senior author Corinna Koebnick of the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation said in a statement.