(Newser)
– Good thing elastic pants are not visible in Zoom. For many Americans, buttoning up jeans became increasingly difficult during the pandemic, and researchers now estimate how many pounds people who receive shelter requests at the site tend to gain. The research letter, published Monday in Open JAMA network, begins by explaining that 45 U.S. states implemented such orders from March 19, 2020 to April 6, 2020. To get a sense of the impact of that period, the researchers used data from a cardiac study in which 269 participants weighed themselves using Bluetooth- smart scales connected between February 1st and June 1st of that year. They found that during the shelter period at the site, people gained an average of 0.6 pounds every 10 days, “regardless of geographic location or comorbidities”.
The senior author, Dr. Gregory M. Marcus, tells the New York Times that Americans who maintained blocking habits during the past year could have packed it at £ 20. And all of those numbers can be low, he says, because the participants were actually losing weight before the blockade. “It is reasonable to assume that these individuals are more engaged with their health in general and more disciplined and controlled,” says Marcus. “This suggests that we may be underestimating – that this is the tip of the iceberg.” UPI cites a recent survey by the American Psychological Association of more than 3,000 adults who somewhat agrees with these findings: 42% reported having experienced unwanted weight gain, with the average gain marking 29 pounds. But 18% reported unwanted weight loss, averaging 26 pounds. (Read more coronavirus stories.)