Covid-19 and the problem with Britain’s weight

How strong is the link between obesity and the danger of dying from Covid? Yesterday, the World Obesity Federation published a report containing a widely-quoted statistic that 2.2 million out of 2.5 million Covid deaths globally have occurred in countries where more than half the population is overweight. The figure is stark, although also highly unsatisfactory. Obesity tends to be more prevalent in wealthy countries – which also happen to have more aged populations, another strong risk factor in Covid deaths.

Yet the report also collates a substantial body of evidence linking obesity more directly with Covid deaths. Among the findings reported around the world is a British study finding that overweight people are 67 per cent more likely to end up in intensive care if they develop Covid-19, a Spanish study which found that obese people are 51 per cent more likely to die when they develop the disease and a Swiss study which found obese people were three times more at risk of death.