Over the last few months we’ve learned that health conditions like heart disease, cancer, and COPD are serious risk factors for severe illness from COVID-19.

Recently, there has also been a trend of patients that are much younger being hospitalized, prompting The World Health Organization (WHO) to release a statement urging younger individuals to take more precautions.

Yet another trend has emerged - the concern over obesity in relation to the coronavirus. According to a recent study, after age, the next strongest predictor of suffering complications from COVID-19 is severe obesity - which may compromise the management of severe COVID-19 due to challenges in diagnosis and treatment caused by the physical effects of obesity.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity is associated with serious health risks. Severe obesity further increases the risk of obesity-related complications, such as coronary heart disease and end-stage renal disease.*

With 71.6 percent of The Bahamas’ population being overweight, and 43.7 being classified as obese, Bahamians are extremely vulnerable to suffering complications from the COVID-19 virus due to a high rate of non-communicable diseases, particularly diabetes, hypertension, asthma and stroke.

With these comorbidities, the risk of death from Covid-19 is said to be twice as likely for people with severe obesity, at any age. Doctors recently advised of a direct link between morbid obesity and recent Covid-19 deaths in the country, which now stand at 89.

At Cleveland Clinic Weston, doctors are seeing an increase in obese patients ending up in the hospital and the ICU.

Dr. Anas Hadeh - director of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Program at Cleveland Clinic Florida – explains that “patients who are obese are more likely to end up in the ICU, on a ventilator and have a worse outcome when it comes to battling COVID-19, even if the patient does not have any other underlying condition.”

There are several reasons for this - such as fatty tissue restricting lung capacity and preventing proper breathing, as well as contributing to the likelihood of blood clots, which has been associated with the coronavirus.

Patients with severe obesity may also have chronic issues like heart disease and pulmonary disease, which can increase their risk for complications should they contract COVID-19.

What’s the good news in all this? Unlike age and underlying conditions, being obese is a risk factor one can control by making conscious changes to diet and regular, consistent exercise.

“Obesity is a modifiable risk factor,” says Hadeh. “So, if you reduce your body mass index by as little as 5%, you can decrease your risk of winding up being in the ICU or being on a ventilator.”

Other recommendations from the CDC advise obese individuals to take their medicines for any underlying health conditions exactly as prescribed and following their healthcare provider’s recommendations for nutrition and physical activity, while maintaining social distancing precautions.

However, without a national initiative to address the Bahamian diet and lifestyle, and the personal discipline to aggressively adopt safety guidelines, Covid-19 has the potential to exact a heavy toll on the Bahamian population.

*According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, someone is considered obese if they have a body mass index (BMI) between 30 and 40. A person is considered severely obse if their BMI is over 40.