Child and teen obesity is believed to have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Prior to the pandemic, the county says 30% of local children were considered obese.
San Diego County on Monday announced $9 million to fund programs that address childhood obesity in the region.
San Diego State Professor of Public Health Guadalupe Ayala joined Midday Edition on Wednesday to talk about the pandemic's impact on San Diego kids' health, and about the complex issues involved with childhood obesity.
"The conditions that COVID highlighted, in terms of lack of access to healthy options, in terms of lack of access to health care those are things that exist and that make our ability to prevent or control childhood obesity really a lot harder," she said. "To address I think the idea of childhood obesity, and I think obesity in general, it really takes a whole community approach."
