Reflexos do isolamento social durante a pandemia de COVID-19 no ganho de peso no Brasil: revisão integrativa

The increase in body weight worsened in Brazil with the COVID-19 pandemic. Studies on the relationship between body weight and COVID-19 highlights its influence on the severity of the disease. Social distancing has had broad impacts on the lives of the population. This article aimed to analyze and synthesize the available evidence on the impacts of social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic on the prevalence of weight gain in the Brazilian context. An integrative literature review was carried out based on the following research question: what is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on weight gain in Brazil? The literature search was carried out in the following databases: SciELO, PubMed/Medline and Virtual Health Library. The search strategies were developed considering the descriptors, “obesity”, “body weight”, “weight gain”, “body composition ", “pandemic”, “COVID-19”, “social isolation”, “Brazil”, combined with the Boolean operators OR and AND. 326 articles were identified, of which six were included after a thorough reading, covering one from 2020, two from 2021, one from 2022 and two from 2023. Regarding the population studied, two articles included children and adolescents and four, over 18 years of age, all Brazilians. The selected studies analyzed different variables, including weight gain. body weight, which showed an increase when data were compared before, during and after the pandemic. It is suggested that the pandemic period, especially due to social isolation, contributed to weight gain among Brazilians, highlighting the importance of prioritizing interventions that promote healthy habits to improve the general population’s health.