ESPE Abstracts

Introduction: Obesity is serious health concern that affect the children during pandemic due to school closing and shifting to online teaching with suspension of almost all physical activity. In addition, many overweight and obese children had irregular meal timing, frequent snacking, and increased screen time at home.

Objectives: To study the effect of COVID 19 on weight gain during the lock- down and shifting to online study.

Methods: In a randomly selected sample of 40 healthy obese prepubertal children (age = 8.4 +/- 2.4 years). Their weight for age SDS (WAZ), height SDS (HAZ) and BMIZ were conducted at regular interval for 2 years. They were followed in the dietitian’s clinic and given the necessary nutrition advice either in the clinic or over phone every 3 months for this period.

Results: Forty obese children followed for two years during COVID 19 epidemic. According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Metabolic syndrome criteria: 8/40 had fasting blood glucose > 5.6 mmol/L, 4/40 had high triglyceride level > 1.7 mmol/L, 11/40 had HDL <1.16 mmol/L and 7/40 had high blood pressure (> 120/80 mmHg). 5/40 had raised ALT, 7/40 had HbA1C = or > 5.8%, and 10/40 had hepatic fatty change detected by ultrasound. Their mean weight gain/day increased significantly from 16.9 g/day at the first visit to 27.7 gm/day after 2 years of follow up. These rates were more than double than expected normal weight velocity (average 10gm/day). On the other hand, BMIZ mean had decreased due to faster increase in their HAZ compared to WAZ. BMI decreased in 20/40 obese children, remained same in 8/40 and increased in 12/40 during the 2 years of follow up.

Conclusion: We conclude that the effect of pandemic accelerated weight gain/d in our obese children but did not increase BMIZ because of their rapid linear growth.