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July 10, 2020 8h04
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The containment we did it fatten ? It is less obvious than it seems…
Jean-François Cliche
The Sun
BLOG / “The only thing that is certain with the coronavirus, it is that we will all get out of the confinement a lot more big.” When I saw this quip sweet-and-sour on my RS a few months ago, I told myself that the author was no doubt right. After all, the gyms, pools and exercise rooms were they not all closed ?
Then I noticed that a surprisingly large number of people passing through each day in front of me while jogging. It seemed to me the least to see many, many more than usual, but I swept it to the back of the hand to me saying 1) that it was anecdotal and 2) that I did not know, at the bottom, if there was really more of a jogger since I was not working often of the house before the confinement. Can-be had-he always had, but that I just could not see them when I spent my days at the office.
Except that here, we are starting to have more systematic data — some of which have even been published in the scientific literature. And it’s official : there really is not obvious that the containment has been so bad for our “silhouette” group, if it gives me the expression. The portrait that emerges from these figures is quite complex, in fact.
There are some, of course, that support the idea that people are a little bit left to go for the containment, at least in some countries. For example, the house of Gallup poll in the United States, has found that the coronavirus had affected the practice of sport for 38 % of Americans, compared to only 14% who said they were doing more physical activity now (and 48 % that it had changed nothing).
Similarly, this study published in late June in the Annals of Internal Medicine (AIM) has analyzed the data to an application account of not having more than 450 000 subscribers, and has found that 30 days after the declaration of the pandemic, each was on average 27 % less than not on a daily basis. The step count is recognized as an indicator reliable enough physical activity in general, it may be, therefore, yes, containment (whether voluntary or compulsory) we have to collectively as “softened”.
But on the other hand, the effect measured in this study (as the authors themselves say) may indicate not a decline in the practice of sports. If you can’t do window-shopping because the malls are closed, if one does not walk over to the parking lot, or up in the transit because we tele-works, then it will be less than not every day. But this does not necessarily imply that we are doing less physical activity than before the confinement, or that it has not replaced our sports before by others.
In addition, the study of AIM also shows strong differences from one country to the other. In places like France, the United States and the United Kingdom, the daily number of steps has fallen dramatically, close to 50% stronger measures of distance. But in other countries (Taiwan, South Korea, Sweden), it has almost nothing changed.
It is also, broadly, a business-as-usual that this study, conducted in Australia, found : 35 % are doing more physical activity than before the pandemic, which is not much less than the 43 % who have reduced their practice of the sport.
Of course, those who are “much less” (21 %) are significantly more numerous than those who are “much more” (6 %), but it remains that, on the whole, this graph does not show (at all) let-go widespread as was feared during the confinement. We are talking about a kind of on-site, here, or at worst a slight decline.
And it may even be that the COVID-19 has stimulated the practice of sport in certain places. This survey for example, conducted for researchers from Trinity College Dublin, indicates that 46 % of Irish people believe they do more physical activity than before, against 28 % who responded on the contrary. (There’s also this which goes in the same direction, but well, I’m not sure at all what it’s worth, then nevermind.)
So how is this possible ? How the coronavirus can be effects if which varied according to the country where it is located ? To Angelo Tremblay, a researcher at Laval University who leads work on physical activity and obesity since the 1980s, this fragmented portrait is not surprising. In fact, he said, “the scientific is rather used to it : depending on the method and circumstances of each country, each will see something, and the other will see something else.”
And even within a same country, we should expect a great diversity of effect. “It is certain that for someone who is going to train in the gym always with the same people, or for someone who loves team sports, there is an incentive to take up a sport that was no longer there,” he continues. (…) It is not everyone who has an intrinsic motivation to train” that will push to replace now impossible (at the gym, for example) by others, such as jogging.
But it remains that, beyond the closures of training rooms and bans for team sports that we have known, many people have found themselves (sometimes against their will) with much more free time than before confinement. It was able to encourage them to exercise, or to increase their usual pace, to kill the time, because they wanted to do but their usual opening time didn’t allow it, etc
Then the effect of the confinement was able to go in either direction — or no direction at all. Mr. Tremblay also shows that he had revised, recently, a scientific article (to be published soon) on the practice of sports in France during the pandemic, which has found just that : a portion of the population is less exercised, another has more, and another has just continued what she was doing already.
“All of this makes me think of a study that was published a long time ago, on the potential impact of genetics on the practice of vigorous exercise,” recalls Mr. Tremblay. We came to the conclusion that yes, there was likely a genetic effect. And probably also a family : one reproduces what one is accustomed to. But there seems to be in our genes markers that promote or hinder the move. So if someone has a predisposition in one direction or another, one might think that a situation such as the containment is going to make them stand out.”
And the same goes for the countries : according to the economic characteristics and habits, the cultural, the pandemic will not have the same effect everywhere. To the knowledge of Mr. Tremblay, there is as yet no study has documented this issue in Quebec — but there is one in which he participates that is being launched.
To follow, so…
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