Dana Gavrinevova’s students pile on weight after covid19 restrictions

Prague, Feb 25 (AFP/APP): Dana Gavrinevova, a sports teacher at a Prague secondary school, has watched in horror as her students have piled on weight after coronavirus restrictions required them to adopt distance learning.

Experts in the Czech Republic as in many other countries are on alert over growing evidence that the practice may turn childhood obesity into a norm. Czech schools have been closed since last autumn, and the country recently became the world’s leader in terms of the rate of coronavirus infections per 100,000 people. “It’s terrible, really. Some kids haven’t left their homes for weeks. They’re happy just to get up and switch on their computers,” Gavrinevova told AFP.

Zlatko Marinov, a child obesity expert at Prague’s Motol hospital, said a crisis is looming. Before the pandemic struck, Marinov said the proportion of Czech children classified as overweight was “stable” at around 25 percent, of whom around 60 percent were considered obese. He predicted a surge in the figures, adding: “We are afraid this will be serious obesity with metabolic complications.”