Schoolchildren from disadvantaged backgrounds present a loss of lean tissue mass and significant increase of body fat mass during the COVID-19 lockdown in Germany: results from the MEDdirect study

Children from socio-economically disadvantaged back-grounds receive unequal opportunities to succeed in school,which will lead to a decreased health literacy as adults[1-4].This is not only directly associated with an impaired eco-nomic and mental health and wellbeing of young people,but above all with an increased adult mortality[1-4].While this problem is well known and described,only few and even fewer pediatric studies suggest how to interrupt this down-ward spiral consistently[5,6].Among possible solutions,peer support seems to be an effective strategy for reaching groups that health services and community workers often fail to address[5,6].The coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)outbreak in 2020 has become an unprecedented threat to global health and aggravated already existing problems,such as lack of nutritional knowledge and food skills,impor-tance of physical activity and regular exercise as well as the overall time spent with social media[7-9].Especially the month-long lasting school lockdowns resulted in a pandemic backdrop of knowledge transfer,food literacy,health care and aggravated mental health difficulties in vulnerable young children while enhancing the already existing gap between under-and over-privileged pupils[9,10].