Woes of Struggling with the Quarantine Weight Gain
By Faiza Zia Khan
Newport Beach, CA
The COVID-19 quarantine weight gain was the real deal. Laugh all you want after reading this, but it was actually a verified fact that a vast majority of Americans reported a significant weight gain while staying indoors.
Reflecting on the past every year the most popular new year’s resolution is to lose weight and reach a desired reduced weight by the year end. As the month of July drifted past us in a foggy haze the shocking revelation came to light that we will soon be at the tail end of 2022 with not much gained in new year’s propositions except the body weight. This weight gain has notoriously made social media history and has been dubbed by the internet memes as the “Quarantine-15” referring to the 15 additional pounds gained holistically during the quarantine months or the acquired extra “COVID curves.”
The new normal took a life-changing turn when the restaurants, take-outs, bakeries, and food chains were closed in the initial lockdown. There was no choice but to get groceries and cook at home if you wanted to survive starvation. Technically, this should have been a good thing as home cooked meals are way healthier than eating out. The internet exploded with comfort food recipes, stress-reliever snack ideas, anti-virus anecdotal medications and teas, and the worst of the worst - baking recipes.
Baking is touted to be therapeutic and comforting in such times. It is a great distraction no doubt, but while it alleviates stress from the brain it generously adds inches to the waistline. Lo and behold there was so much baking going on that flour, cake mixes, and baking ingredients flew off the shelves to not be found anywhere in grocery stores or even on Amazon for that matter. Times became so desperate that people switched to vegan baking using almond flour, coconut sugar, and oat milk due to non-availability of regular flour and other baking additives. Cookies, cakes, pastries, muffins, cupcakes, brownies, scones, and banana bread became a staple in every household. Even those who had never switched on their stove ovens now claim to have done some sort of home baking while in quarantine, being inspired by the internet trend as they tried to stay busy while stuck indoors.
I guess now there is more transparency in envisioning how easy it is to gain weight during this pandemic, especially when staying at home. A survey commissioned by a renowned health agency says the stay-at-home measures have led to serious weight gain of up to 16 pounds for 76 percent of Americans. This is a very significant number considering American health professionals emphasize staying fit and healthy at all times. However, this is the first time health professionals were faced with questions about weight-gain during a pandemic. First world problems? Yes, very much so!
Majority of the populace did not see this coming and were taken by surprise as they were either suddenly furloughed from work, or had to go remote working from home since the shelter in place orders were strictly imposed by the government that did not allow non-essential workers to leave home. Either way, there was a lot of immobility and involuntary lack of movement involved due to smaller accommodations, or simply because people were scared of going out and getting exposed to the virus. As weeks went past there was some semblance of a physical fitness routine coming up in people’s lives where regular exercise and outdoor activities were returning. Public spaces such as gyms, exercise centers, pools, parks, and beaches were slowly reopening after sheltering-at-home restrictions were getting slightly relaxed. Many attributed excessive eating due to close proximity with the kitchen and easy access to food at all times. Some blamed a poor nutritional dietary routine as they would sit inside their homes working on the computer as sedentary workers for more hours as opposed to when they were actually at work in the office, that resulted in eating at improper times or reliance on unnecessary snacking with junk food.
Another study conducted demonstrated 63 percent of US adults were putting post-quarantine weight loss at the top of their list of priorities to counteract the dietary choices they had made during the coronavirus lockdowns. The survey highlighted that 42 percent of Americans have been struggling to stay physically active and maintain a consistent meal schedule while 34 percent were having a hard time staying motivated while they worked from home.
That being said as per the latest reports on the other side of the spectrum no one has claimed to have lost weight from the quarantine - at least not yet. This number does not include those who were affected by the virus and got sick. Initially there was no motivation or creativity towards focusing on physical fitness while sitting at home. But as gyms and fitness centers stayed closed celebrities, fitness instructors, sports personnel, and health coaches started creating content geared towards working out from home. Parallel to the food and baking recipes the internet went viral with workout routines for the fitness savvy. A wellness guru said this well, “The pounds don’t just magically appear. Take time to figure it out. Ask yourself what you’re doing or eating that’s different. I cannot focus enough on hydration, getting enough sleep and planning how you’re going to exercise. But above all make sure to forgive yourself and remember that you are human. But to be human is to be able to make mistakes and bounce back from it. This isn’t some fatal mistake, you just fell off the bike.”
As we all work together towards containing the pandemic and adapt to the new normal this is the best time to get on board with health and fitness, before it is too late, and those layers have found a permanently comfortable position on your body.
(Faiza Zia Khan holds a Master’s in Journalism degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. She has collaborated with news media outlets including Global National and actively volunteers for several community investment projects for the Red Cross, United Way and the Breast Cancer Foundation)
