A latest study reveals that obesity continues to progress in France, particularly among 18-24 year olds.
The number of cases has doubled in eight years.
Several factors are involved: sedentary lifestyle, stress, consumption of processed products ... and all of this has been worsened by the Covid-19 epidemic.
A worrying development.
Obesity has continued to increase in recent years in France and now affects nearly one in six adults, while overweight is declining slightly, reaching 30% of the population.
This is the conclusion of a new study, ObEpi-Roche, which also assesses childhood obesity for the first time.
The survey highlights in particular the doubling of cases of obesity and overweight in eight years among 18-24 year olds: the figure rose from 5.4% of people suffering from obesity or overweight to 9.2%.
Several factors, aggravated by the pandemic
The causes are relatively well known: departure from the parental home, consumption of processed products, lack of knowing how to cook.
Also involved, the stress of studying.
But the pandemic is not unrelated to this increase either, as explained by Mélanie Delozé, dietitian and secretary general of the League against obesity.
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"Most [of these young people] found themselves alone in small apartments, without being able to go to practice physical activity. And then there were financial difficulties," she explains.
"For people who suffer from obesity, there has been a breakdown in care. Dietary and psychological consultations, adapted physical activity and medical care were completely stopped during the health crisis."
Family isolation, for those who were already experiencing unrest, could also make matters worse during confinement.
One third of 2-7 year olds are overweight
The second phenomenon that could also seem very worrying: a third of 2-7 year olds are overweight.
But the message of the association is clear on this subject, it is important not to dramatize.
The curves tend to reduce naturally from the age of 8, with growth.
It is therefore necessary to leave the children alone and above all not to impose diets.
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The survey, called ObEpi-Roche, was carried out every three years, at the initiative of the pharmaceutical laboratory Roche between 1997 and 2012. The League against obesity relaunched it with the Odoxa polling institute and the Health Chair of Sciences-Po, in order to once again have a "reliable source on the evolution" of obesity. It was carried out on a representative sample of 9,598 adults, 542 adolescents aged 15 to 17 and 1,642 children under 15, interviewed online from September 24 to October 5, 2020.