“We forget how much children, even the youngest toddlers, can pick up on our emotions, our stress and our worries.” The pandemic gave rise to the lack of sports and poor eating habits among children. “We adults felt tremendous fear, which we projected onto our children,” Shapiro said. The alarming trends are rooted in the severe disruptions American families experienced over the last 20 months. In August, psychologists at the University of Calgary reported that mood disorders had nearly doubled among children worldwide since the spring of 2020, with up to 25 percent showing signs of clinical depression.Īnd routine childhood vaccinations dropped last year by up to 63 percent in some areas, the CDC disclosed in October, sparking worries that outbreaks of measles and mumps are on the horizon. “And I don’t feel like it’s over by any stretch.”Ī study of more than 400,000 children and teens released by the Centers for Disease Control in September found a “substantial and alarming” increase in obesity since March 2020, when schools and businesses were shuttered to slow the spread of COVID-19. Kids aged 5 to 11 saw the worst of the weight gain, another group of researchers found. “Now we’re seeing the fallout,” pediatrician Dr. Study after study has confirmed what parents across the country long suspected: the coronavirus pandemic - not just the disease itself, but the lockdowns and restrictions that governments enforced to combat it - has had a devastating impact on children’s physical and mental health. New York kids are packing on the pounds during lockdown Gay and transgender children more likely to be obese, study finds Teens from ‘loving family’ put in foster care for being overweight ‘Kids on keto’ diet trend sparks controversy

Words to are you sleeping