The number of overweight two-year-olds has risen remarkably last year. This is apparent from figures that Kind & Gezin collected during consultations and that De Morgen was able to view. The Growing Up Agency speaks of a ‘corona effect’.
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Over the past ten years, the number of Flemish two-year-olds who are overweight has almost doubled. While ten years ago we were at 6.7 percent of two-year-olds, that number climbed to 9.6 percent in 2019 and to 11.4 percent in ‘corona year 2020’. Last year, 1.8 percent of overweight two-year-olds were also found to be obese. The year before that, it was still 1.3 percent.
The increase appears to be general throughout Flanders and within all population groups, but the cause of the increase is difficult to identify. Due to the corona measures, Kind & Gezin saw fewer children at its consultations in 2020 than in previous years and the children who did visit may have been more vulnerable. But that alone cannot explain the large increase.
The Growing Up agency also thinks in the direction of a corona effect. “We saw striking differences in birth months,” says Diederik Vancoppenolle, scientific advisor at the Growing Up Agency. “The children who were two years old in the first months of 2020 and who came for a consultation with Kind & Gezin turned out to be at the same level as the children the year before. In the children who turned two in June, we see a remarkable increase. About 13 percent are overweight. As of June, the share will remain above 11 percent.”
The figures therefore seem to suggest that corona – which has put families under pressure and parents sometimes found it difficult to combine their family with working from home – has led to more overweight among two-year-olds. At the Growing Up Agency they do not want to make the data too much of a problem, because it may be a temporary fact and two-year-olds still have every chance of losing excess weight. It does, however, require the necessary vigilance.
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