Obesity the Reason COVID Hit the USA So Hard

By Gary F. Zeolla

      The World Obesity Federation has found that COVID-19 deaths have been 10 times higher in countries in which more than half of adults are overweight – and 90% of all deaths from the virus worldwide have occurred there.

      The federation said the connection may account for the high death rate in the U.S., in which 69.7% of its adult population is overweight. That means nearly 70 million adult Americans are obese….

      “Increased body weight is the second greatest predictor of hospitalization and a high risk of death for people suffering from Covid-19,” the report said.

      “Only old age rates as a higher risk factor. The unprecedented economic costs of Covid-19 are largely due to the measures taken to avoid the excess hospitalization and need for treatment of the disease,” the federation said. “Reducing one major risk factor, overweight, would have resulted in far less stress on health services and reduced the need to protect those services from being overwhelmed” (Just the News).

I have been saying this since Day One of the pandemic. In fact, in Volume Two of my three volume set Dems Cannot Beat Trump, So They Impeach Trump, I include several Coronavirus (CV) updates. In one, I tackle the charge that Trump is to blame for the CV hitting the USA so hard. After refuting that accusation, I ask the question, “But why has the CV hit America so hard? It was not Trump’s fault. I put the blame on four reasons.” My fourth reason is the following:

Fourth, we have an unhealthy American population, with two-thirds of Americans who are overweight, one-third obesely so, 100 million Americans with diabetes, and 100 million with hypertension. Those three conditions put a person at high risk of serious consequences from a CV infection. In fact, the vast majority of deaths in the USA of those under 65 have had one or more of these preexisting conditions.

None of this is Trump’s fault. It is the fault of … individual Americans not taking personal responsibility for their health. … Dems and the MSM would call that “fat-shaming,” but it needs to be said.

Note that this book was published back in early September 2020, though I have been writing in this regard long before that. It is in fact the main reason I railed against the closure of gyms and other places of exercise back in March of 2020 at the start of the pandemic. I said then that was the exact opposite of what should have been done.

Those closures, and the lockdowns in general, led to the phenomena that was called “The Quarantine 15,” referring to the number of pounds the average American gained as result of the lockdowns. It was all so wrong headed. And here we are, a year later, and I have been proven right and all of the Governors who closed gyms, who closed parks, who closed golf courses, who closed beaches, who closed playgrounds have been proven wrong.

Even worse, this is the first time I have seen a report that acknowledges being overweight is the primary reason (next to old age) people suffer serious consequences from a CV infection. Really! The first time. Not once before this have I read a news article, heard a radio news report, or seen a TV news report that recommended people lose weight to reduce their risk of serious consequences from a CV infection, yet doing so would have done far more to reduce the hospitalization and death rate in the USA than all of the mask-wearing mandates, social distancing requirements, capacity limits, and lockdowns we have been subjected to have done combined.

As the World Obesity Federation wrote in its report, “An overweight population is an unhealthy population, and a pandemic waiting to happen” (from iHeart). Open the gyms and other places for exercise and fix the overweight problem in American. That will end the seriousness of this pandemic and prevent another one from hitting us so hard again.

For details on that book, see: Dems Cannot Beat Trump, So They Impeach Trump: Volume Two HJC Hearings and Pre-Senate Trial Events (Mid-November 2019 to Mid-January 2020).

For my CV writings where I discussed all of this previously, see Coronavirus Articles and Commentaries.

References:

Just the News: High obesity rate in U.S. to blame for having one of world’s worst COVID-19 rates, study finds.

iHeart Radio. 90% Of COVID Deaths Were In Countries With Overweight Populations (on my phone, so no link).

Dems Cannot Beat Trump, So They Impeach Trump: Volume One:
Beginnings Through HIC Hearings (Early September Through Late November 2019)

This three-volume set covers the impeachment of Donald J. Trump that occurred over the fall of 2019 to the winter of 2020. It was yet one more attempt to oust the President from office by Democrats, who never accepted he won in 2016. A complaint about a phone call between President Trump and Ukraine President Zelensky led an impeachment inquiry to begin in early September 2019, and the resultant proceedings tore America apart at the seams. This Volume One covers the beginnings of the impeachment inquiry through the public hearings before the House Intelligence Committee.

The above article was posted on this website March 5, 2021.

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