SEOUL, Jan. 21 (Korea Bizwire) — Remote schooling at home following the coronavirus outbreak is resulting in the spread of obesity among children.
A research team from the College of Medicine of the Catholic University of Korea measured the body mass index (BMI) of 226 children between 4 and 14 years of age.
While it showed that 23.9 percent of them were overweight or obese during the pre-COVID-19 period (March 2, 2019 to February 1, 2020), the proportion increased to 31.4 percent in the six months following the COVID-19 period.
Among the 158 children previously in the non-obese group, 22 (9.5 percent) had become overweight and obese.
As children spend longer hours indoors, their consumption of Vitamin D, generated via exposure to sunlight, has decreased.
The levels of calcifediol, a substance used to measure the levels of Vitamin D, dropped from 23.8 milligrams per decilitre (㎎/㎗) in the pre-coronavirus era to 18.9 ㎎/㎗ following the outbreak.
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