By Juanique Tennant

The COVID-19 death rate is about 10 times higher in countries where half or more of the country’s population is overweight, a new study from the World Obesity Federation (WOF) has found.

The study, which was released in time for World Obesity Day on Thursday (March 4), confirmed that being overweight is a significant predictor that an individual will develop complications from contracting COVID-19, which could lead to hospitalisation, intensive care, mechanical ventilation or death from the disease.

The connection between obesity and COVID-19 complication has been speculated on since the early days of the pandemic, but now has hard data supporting the theory.

The WOF research indicates that countries such as the United States, United Kingdom and Italy, where more than 50 per cent of the population is overweight, had a much higher death rate from COVID-19 in 2020 when compared to countries such as Vietnam where obesity rates are below 40 per cent.

According to the findings of the study, obesity and otherwise excessive weight could be risk factors for dangerous outcomes in people under 60 years old, with those who have a body mass index (BMI) between 30 and 34 twice as likely to be admitted to ICU compared with the those with a BMI under 30.

The report found that “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”.

The findings also suggest that people who are obese or overweight should be prioritised for testing and vaccination.

While age has been seen as the biggest predictor for severe outcomes, which has led to priority being given to older people in most countries’ COVID-19 vaccine rollouts, the WOF report found that overweight populations are at a close second in terms of vulnerability to COVID-19.

The WOF is therefore now calling for this group to be prioritised for immunisation.

According to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, the report “must act as a wake-up call to governments globally” to tackle obesity.