Dynamics of childhood obesity in Hong Kong throughout the COVID-19 pandemic before and after the school closures: a 3-year longitudinal study

Objective: This study is to evaluate if there is any difference in the balance between incidence of and remission from overweight/obesity in Hong Kong school-age children before and during the COVID-19 pandemic over three years.Methods: This is a retrospective longitudinal study that involved children aged 6-16 years from a database of the School Physical Fitness Award Scheme.Results: 2765 students were longitudinally followed up for two years. The prevalence of childhood overweight/obesity was increased between the 2019 and 2021 academic years (P < 0.001). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate of obesity remission significantly reduced by 7.9 % (P = 0.003), at a background of a plateau of obesity among children and adolescents.Conclusions: Our study provides evidence on the impact of school closure and home confinement as a standard infection control measure for the prevention of COVID-19, which are likely to break the balance between incidence of and remission from childhood obesity.(c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Royal Society for Public Health. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)