Improve your diet
With leaders and health officials hanging hope on the development of a vaccine to COVID-19, researchers are rushing to produce a workable inoculation.
Americans should do their part to ensure that such efforts aren’t wasted. This is a unique moment to address the elephant in the room. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity — classified at a body mass index of 30 or higher — causes increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19. The prevalence of obesity in 2017-2018 was 42.4% and is thought to be rising, also according to the CDC.
Obesity can significantly reduce the efficacy of vaccines.
Changes in diet and health habits are personal decisions, but in addition to the increased coronavirus risk and potentially limiting the strength of a vaccine, obesity also taxes the health care system at a time when smarter dieting choices could save lives in more ways than one.
With grocery sales surging and home cooking on the rise as restaurants face continued restrictions, America is poised to take control of its collective waistline. Consumers with the means should take this time to improve their diets.
A 2013 study from Harvard
University indicates that it is in fact more expensive to eat a healthy diet than otherwise thought, though plenty of researchers disagree.
At the outset of the pandemic, produce and pantry items experienced a renaissance in sales. Web traffic on recipe blogs and cooking sites increased dramatically. Memberships to programs like Imperfect Foods leapt through the roof. And of course, curbside delivery and pickup replaced actually shopping for many individuals worried about shopping in a public setting.
Additionally, more people are shopping online and having their groceries delivered to reduce foot traffic and trips to the store. This allows for less impromptu shopping and impulse buying and for easier nutritional comparisons and recipe shopping.
Consumer data indicates that while people focused on staples like yeast, flower, sugar and non-perishables at the outset of the pandemic, sales of unhealthy snack foods have also skyrocketed. In this time of continued economic uncertainty and food insecurity, it will undoubtedly be tempting to stick with comfort food and caloriedense nutrition.
But, perhaps especially now, we could all try harder to clean up our diets.