Personal trainer and gym owner Kate Laird leads a Family Boot Camp class at her gym in Ottawa on Saturday. Ms. Laird says women clients often tell her that the pandemic made it harder for them to prioritize their health and nutrition.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail
Years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, Kate Laird, who runs the Ottawa-based gym Love Your Body Fitness, still hears daily from women clients who describe how they gained weight during that stressful time. Many share that they haven’t felt like themselves since.
Most of the time they end up in tears while talking about how difficult it was to maintain fitness routines and prioritize their health and nutrition.
A new study reinforces concerns that Ms. Laird is hearing from her clients: Obesity rates in Canada increased faster in the four years after the onset of COVID compared with the prior 11 years.
It also found that women and younger adults were particularly affected and the pandemic, and associated public-health restrictions, may have “adversely affected obesity prevalence in Canada.”
“Moms really bore the brunt of the pandemic,” Ms. Laird said.
Most, she said, had to support children with online learning or were isolated with toddlers and preschoolers at home. Ms. Laird appreciates how hard that time was: She had two school-aged children learning virtually during shutdowns. Like her, they were also still trying to work their jobs.
Ms. Laird was a single mother when she started boot camps in her backyard where people could bring kids along. Now, her gym offers classes where children are also welcome.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail
“They worked so hard taking care of everybody else and everybody else’s needs that they put themselves dead last on the list and survived on kids’ sandwich crusts,” she said.
Research, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, defined obesity through body-mass index (BMI). It looked at data from nearly 750,000 adults aged 18 and older and trends over 15 years.
The study, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, reported an increase to 33 per cent in 2023 from 25 per cent in 2009.
After the pandemic began in 2020, there was an increase of just over one percentage point a year, about twice the rate prior to COVID. Women exhibited greater increases in recent years, suggesting a notable shift toward severe obesity, the study says.
“This really quantifies the magnitude of the issue,” said one of the study’s authors, Laura Anderson, an associate professor in McMaster University’s Department of Health Research Methods.
“I think this should be a real call to action for policymakers to start thinking about what we can do to invest in public-health infrastructure, to support improved health behaviours and to encourage health policies that support healthy communities.”
A new report says the prevalence of obesity increased faster during the COVID-19 pandemic than it did over the course of more than a decade beforehand, specifically in young adults.
The Canadian Press
Since the outset of the pandemic, a range of medical researchers have documented how it compounded health challenges for Canadians. For example, it worsened mental health and intensified caregiving responsibilities during school and daycare shutdowns.
Prof. Anderson said it is possible that stress associated with COVID could be a contributing factor to her team’s research findings. (They acknowledge the limitations of using BMI because the index is not a direct measure of body fat or the health consequences of obesity.)
People need support to prioritize their health, Ms. Laird says, and she leans on a trainer of her own to stay on track.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail
“There were so many different changes during the COVID-19 pandemic: changes in our lifestyles, and how we were working, and increased sedentary activities, and changes in food as well as mental health,” said Prof. Anderson.
“We do know that in some cases, women had an increased burden of caregiving duties, both caring for older adults and younger adults and children.”
Ms. Laird strongly believes individuals need support to prioritize their health. And even though this is what she focuses on for a living, she leans on a trainer of her own to stay on track.
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Her gym, however, does not talk about weight, nor does it put mirrors up on the walls. Instead, trainers encourage people to embrace healthy behaviours and mindset shifts. As a first step, Ms. Laird said she works to address any guilt, particularly among mothers, that may bubble up when they prioritize themselves.
Often, she uses the example of how they sign children up for swimming without hesitation because it is important. She tells them it is important to show up for themselves, too.
A decade ago, Ms. Laird was a single mother when she started boot camps in her backyard where people could bring kids along. Now, her gym offers classes where children are also welcome. They can often be found building block towers and playing with ponies while parents work out; some even join in.
“I totally get how hard it is,” she said. “If I can do it, you can do it.”