The Truth About Pandemic Weight Gain

I’ve been seeing a lot of reports in the media about how much weight everyone supposedly gained during the pandemic year. And some of the numbers are pretty alarming. One highly regarded source reported an average weight gain of 25 pounds. Another widely reported survey put that number even higher at 29 pounds.

Meanwhile, everyone on social media is bemoaning the fact that returning to in-person work is going to require a whole new wardrobe because they can no longer fasten their so-called “hard pants.”

Internet memes and jokes aside, massive weight gain in a large proportion of the population would have serious implications in the form of increased disease burden, risks, and disability. Fortunately, when you take a closer look at the data, the actual situation is not as dire or dramatic as news reports would suggest.

Questionable data, badly reported

One of these reports, for example, is based on an internet survey conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of the American Psychological Association. And, contrary to what you may have seen in the media, this survey did NOT find that the average person gained 29 pounds during the pandemic.

Four in 10 of those surveyed actually said that the pandemic did not result in any unwanted weight change. Twenty percent said that they experienced unwanted weight loss as a result of the stress. The remaining 40% said that the pandemic had led to unwanted weight gain -- and the average reported weight gain among that group was, indeed, 29 pounds. But only half of those (or 20% of all respondents) reported gaining more than 15 pounds.

Keep in mind that all of these were self-reported changes not verified by any actual weight data. So it’s unclear how accurate people’s reports or recollections were. But clearly, it’s a gross misrepresentation to say that the average person gained 29 pounds during the pandemic. Most of the people in this particular survey didn’t report unwanted gain weight -- and most of those who did gained less than half that much.

And what about the widely-shared article on the Harvard Health Blog that mentions a 25 pound weight gain? Again, all is not as it seems. The Harvard writers were reporting on data published by researchers from University of California, San Francisco.

This was a much smaller sample size, involving just 270 people, who were tracking their weight using a Bluetooth-enabled scale as part of a cardiology study.  So the data are certainly more reliable. They found that subjects...

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