(P20-065-24) Food Intake, Physical Activity and Weight Increase in Mexican School-Age Children During COVID-19 Pandemics

Objectives: Lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemics led to changes in the children's population lifestyle, this may have triggered damage over their health. The objective of the present study is to document the association between the weight increase (WI), food intake increase (FII) and the decrease in physical activity (PA) during the COVID-19 pandemics lockdown.

Methods: The study was conducted during September and October of 2020 through a self-applicable electronic questionnaire aimed to parents or caregivers with children in school-age. The referred period was from March (the time of the lockdown beginning) until the date of the survey application. The variables were WI in the children, food intake, PA and sedentary behaviors measured through the interviewed own perception. Logistic regression models were constructed in order to establish the association between FII and PA decrease with the WI.

Results: Information from 1209 school-age children was collected, 45.2% of those interviewed reported WI and 54.3% reported to be eating more than the usual amount during the lockdown. The PA frequency was 24.3% daily, 18.0% from 4 to 5 days/week, 50% less than 3 days/week and 7.2% did not make PA at all. A positive association was observed between WI and FII (OR=2.6, p=0.000). Interaction of daily PA with socioeconomic level shows that there exists a protective and significant effect against WI in the lower socioeconomic levels when PA is conducted daily (OR=0.27, p= 0.009).

Conclusions: Risk factors associated with obesity development like the absence of PA and excessive food intake were present during the lockdown. These behaviors can become hard to revert habits, thus it is necessary to improve the attention in this age group.

Funding Sources: National Institute of Public Health, Mexico