Putting on pandemic pounds
HALIFAX — Nick Dimitropoulos has been letting out a lot of trousers lately.
The Halifax tailor figures he’s seen about 10 per cent more customers than usual who need alterations because they’ve packed on extra weight during the pandemic.
“A lot of pants — we let them out in the waist and the seat,” said the owner of Vogue Men’s Wear & Tailoring.
“With the COVID everybody is staying home and they don’t do nothing and they just eat a little more.”
The change is noticeable now, as he sees customers coming in with fall clothing that needs alterations.
“Since March, people were wearing a pair of shorts and T-shirts and that’s it and they didn’t go anywhere,” Dimitropoulos said. “Right now they’re starting to go out a little more.”
Dimitropoulos is in the same position himself.
“We don’t do that much exercise,” he said. “When you’re at home, you open the fridge more times than once.”
Dimitropoulos likes snacking on cheese and crackers, something he thinks isn’t great for his waistline.
So is he altering his own pants, too?
“Definitely,” Dimitropoulos said with a chuckle. “But nobody knows when I do my own. That’s the secret part.”
Alex Cameron, a personal trainer in Halifax, said a lot of his clients found it difficult to keep weight off during the lockdown.
He blames it on motivation.
“When you’re at home and you’re simply stuck in your own routine every day it’s very easy to kind of let yourself slip a little bit.”
With the season changing, weight gain is becoming more noticeable, Cameron said.
“They’re coming into their fall attire and it’s turning into, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t remember this being this tight.’”
Weight gain and loss are both very slow, he said.
“So if the only person that you’re interacting with is you or your immediate bubble people who see you all the time, it takes a while for that to really sink in that, ‘Oh shoot, I’ve changed.’ Be it good or bad. And, of course, during the COVID time it was mainly bad.”
The problem isn’t that we’re buying more food, said Sylvain Charlebois, professor in food distribution and policy, and senior director of the AgriFood Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
“I think it has a lot to do with our sedentary lifestyle. We’re not moving as much,” Charlebois said. “That seems to be the issue. COVID came violently into our lives seven months ago and we’re still trying to adjust.”
When people go to work, instead of working from home, they’re spending energy, he said.
“This morning I actually had a meeting in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax ... without moving from my chair,” Charlebois said. “That’s why people are getting their suits adjusted.”
We saw a bump in snack food sales early on in the pandemic, he said.
“But things have calmed down,” Charlebois said.
The British government came out with a program this summer aimed at getting people to do more exercise during the lockdown, he said.
“I was surprised that the Canadian government didn’t do the same because there is strong evidence that if you are overweight, you are more vulnerable.”
Even before the pandemic, Nova Scotians were too heavy. In 2018, Statistics Canada reported that 242,500 adults in this province identified as obese. That number rose to 243,700 last year.
The situation among youngsters appears to be worse, with 10,800 Nova Scotians between the ages of 12 and 17 identifying as obese in 2018. That number jumped to 16,200 last year.