Coronavirus: Women more likely than men to gain weight during pandemic, study finds

Women were more likely than men to gain weight during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, a study suggests. Experts also found that both sexes under the age of 45 were more likely to put on the pounds than those in other age groups.

However, the research found that the vast majority of people stayed around the same weight or did not move into another weight category, according to their body mass index (BMI). This is at a time when awareness was growing about how severe Covid-19 can be affected by weight.

The new research, on almost a million adults in the UK, is being presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Maastricht.

It used data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) of more than 200,000 UK GP practices, which includes information on BMI just before lockdown in March 2020, and in the year or so afterwards.

Of 938,164 people included in the initial analysis, 32 per cent were classed as a healthy weight before lockdown, while 35 per cent were overweight and 33 per cent were obese. Of those who were obese, they were regarded as either class 1 (BMI of 30 to 35), class 2 (35 to 40) or class 3 (over 40).

Some 58 per cent of those in the study were female and 83 per cent were white. Deeper analysis of 273,529 people found that most (83-93 per cent) remained in the same BMI category before and after lockdown. Of those who were a healthy weight, 83 per cent remained in the same BMI category post-lockdown, 14 per cent became overweight or obese, and about 3 per cent moved into the underweight category. Of those who were overweight, 11 per cent gained weight while 12 per cent lost weight.