Adults over 50 living with obesity were more likely to experience stressors during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic despite being less likely to perceive the pandemic’s consequences as negative, says a McMaster University-led study.
The research was published online in the International Journal of Obesity.
The study is one of the first to use a national, population-based cohort to explore potential factors that may impact older adults’ stress during the pandemic.
The study examined data from nearly 24,000 participants enrolled in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), who were between the ages of 50 and 96 during the first year of the pandemic. The participants completed the CLSA COVID-19 Questionnaire Study, which collected longitudinal data from April to December 2020. The researchers also used data collected before the pandemic to examine if childhood adversity, such as abuse and neglect, was a factor that modified the relationship between obesity and stress.
The research team found that people with obesity were more likely to experience an increase in overall stressors, as well as health-related stressors, but did not perceive the consequences of the pandemic as negative or very negative. They also found that females with class III obesity, sometimes referred to as severe obesity, were less likely to report stress outcomes during the pandemic than males.
Similarly, people who experienced adverse childhood experiences were substantially more likely to experience stressors and had more negative perceptions of the pandemic. However, there was no evidence that the association between obesity and stress was modified by childhood adversity.
