Countries that have a high population of overweight people saw a higher risk of death associated with the novel coronavirus, according to recent research from the World Obesity Forum.
- The risk of death was about 10 times higher in these countries, per CNN.
What’s going on?
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Researchers with the World Obesity Forum found that countries with high obesity rates had COVID-19 death rates that were 10 times higher than countries where less than half the population was considered overweight, according to CNN.
- The team used mortality data from Johns Hopkins University and the World Health Organization.
- The researchers found 2.2 million of the 2.5 million total COVID-19 deaths happened in countries where over 50% of the country was overweight, according to CNN.
The numbers
- Countries that have less than 40% of an overweight population had a death rate of less than about 10 people per 100,000, per HealthDay.
- But countries with more than 50% of overweight people had a death rate of more than 100 per 100,000, according to HealthDay.
Key quote
- “An overweight population is an unhealthy population, and a pandemic waiting to happen,” the researchers wrote, according to Al Jazeera.
So what about the U.S.?
- According to Bloomberg, close to two-thirds (66%) of the United States is overweight or obese.
- The United States had the most amount of COVID-19 deaths with more than 518,000, according to Johns Hopkins.