The new study analyzed data from 269 participants involved in an ongoing cardiac study, the Health eHeart Study. They volunteered to report weight measurements from Bluetooth-connected smart scales and weighed themselves regularly. The researchers collected 7,444 weight measurements over a four month period, an average of 28 weight measurements from each participant.
Updated
March 23, 2021, 1:20 p.m. ET
The group was by no means nationally representative, so the results cannot be generalized: about three-quarters were white and only 3.5 percent were identified as black or African American; About 3 percent were identified as Asian-American. The median age was 51 years and they were almost equally divided between men and women.
Participants came from 37 states and the District of Columbia. The researchers analyzed weight measurements taken between February 1, 2020 and June 1, 2020 to examine weight changes both before and after protection orders were placed for each state.
While attendees had mostly lost pounds before orders were placed, their weights increased steadily at a rate of about six tenths of a pound every 10 days after orders were placed, regardless of where they were in the country and regardless of chronic illness.
The bans have certainly had an impact on eating habits, what people eat and how often they eat. But the restrictions have also limited the modest physical activity that is part of daily life, the researchers said.
“When you think of people commuting, even walking to the subway or bus stop, or getting on the post office to mail a letter, or stopping in a store, we burn a lot of calories doing outside of everyday life. “Said Leanne Redman, a professor of clinical physiology at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, part of Louisiana State University.
Their research found that people ate healthier diets for the first few days of shutdown, but were more sedentary.
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