Hello there, this is Monica Reinable, and you are listening to The Nutrition Diva Podcast.

Welcome.

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 these numbers are pretty alarming.

One highly regarded source reported an average weight gain of 25 pounds.

Other 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

or school 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 quite

as dire or dramatic as news reports would suggest.

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 about this in the media, the survey did not find

that the average person gained 29 pounds during the pandemic.

Four in ten 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 percent said that the pandemic had led to unwanted weight gain, and the average

reported weight gain in that group was indeed 29 pounds, but only half of those or 20 percent

...