Being affected by Covid-19 when you are obese can be very dangerous. Figures from Public Health France are eloquent: 47% of intensive care admissions concern overweight people and among the deaths there are 40% obese people. On the occasion of World Obesity Day, the National Collective of Obese Associations (CNAO) warns of a care that is changing little.
If Covid-19 and obesity are so dangerous when they collide, it’s because obesity is a risk factor pulmonary embolism. Anne-Sophie Joly, president of the CNAO, deplores the decision-making that is ill-suited in the context of the crisis, for this disease (and the problem of overweight in general) which affects 8 million people in France, i.e. 15% of the population. At the beginning, they have been forgotten from the vaccination planit was only very recently (during February) that the right to the coronavirus vaccine was opened to obese people.
A disease that must be diagnosed in advance
We must ensure that these patients are protected, without stigmatizing them, isolating them or scaring them. However, currently, the consideration of this pathology is too often reduced to an unhealthy lifestyle and a lack of sports practice. Patient associations denounce received ideas and recall that it is a matter ofa real diseasewhich is explained by genetic and environmental factors and against which you cannot simply fight by changing your diet.
The Covid-19 crisis highlights the preponderance of this pathology and its dangers. The French medical system is still struggling to detect upstream pathologies leading to overweight and all the complications related to it. Changing obesity management is urgent, as is “to do a real job of prevention, patient support but also raising awareness among the general public, caregivers, and public authorities in order to finally be able to change things.“
For the time being, the CNAO is participating in the development of an “obesity” roadmap at the Ministry of Health, and is waiting for obesity to finally be recognized as a disease.
Sources: Public Health France, CNAO
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