Pandemic fuels spike in childhood obesity in Hawaiʻi

In Hawaiʻi, the disruptions to daily routines and economic security were particularly profound last year amid government-imposed lockdowns and restrictions and schools implementing distance learning. The state’s unemployment rate soared to 21.9 percent in April and remained high throughout the year. Many jobless families scrambled to get unemployment insurance, sign up for Medicaid and find supplements to their food budgets with the economic downturn affecting the state’s lower wage earners the hardest.

“In general, I think it is difficult to be healthy when your world is upended like that,” said Daniela Spoto, director of anti-hunger initiatives at the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice.

She said the financial strain on families is intertwined with obesity rates.

“Obesity and hunger everywhere in the developed world are two sides of the same coin because the cheapest foods that people can afford are also the foods that are highest in salt, fat and sugar, and lowest in nutrients,” said Spoto.

She said that many students last year also didn’t have the benefit of school meals, which became healthier under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which was championed by former first lady Michelle Obama and which increased nutrition standards.

This year, all public school children are receiving free school lunches, a policy that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation urged all states to make permanent.