CEO Canceled for Calling Out Obesity Impact in COVID Outcomes

CEO Canceled for Calling Out Obesity Impact in COVID Outcomes by Dr. Joseph Mercola

In a now-deleted Linkedin post, Jonathan Neman, CEO and co-founder of salad chain restaurant Sweetgreen, highlighted data showing that most people hospitalized with COVID-19 are overweight or obese.¹ “Is there an underlying problem that perhaps we have not given enough attention to? Is there another way to think about how we tackle ‘healthcare’ by addressing the root cause?” Neman wrote.²

Backlash quickly ensued, with media accusing Neman of fat-shaming and being “fat-phobic,”³ prompting him to apologize days later. While stating that he regretted his choice of words, he added, “I stand behind the intent of the post.”⁴

As Kim Iversen states in The Hill video above,⁵ the message that obesity worsens COVID outcomes is one that needs to be heard, and health officials should be sharing it widely, along with effective methods to help people lose weight and maintain it.

Overweight and Obesity Involved 79% of COVID Hospitalizations

Neman was “canceled” for daring to speak out against pandemic protocol, including suggesting that “no vaccine nor mask will save us” and adding:⁶

“What if we focused on the ROOT CAUSE and used this pandemic as a catalyst for creating a healthier future?? We clearly have no problem with government overreach on how we live our lives all in the name of ‘health,’ however we are creating more problems than we are solving.

What if we made the food that is making us sick illegal? What if we taxed processed food and refined sugar to pay for the impact of the pandemic? What if we incentivized health?”

Neman’s message was lost in the backlash, but the fact is that obesity increases the risk for severe COVID-19 illness — significantly. A CDC study involving 148,494 U.S. adults found a nonlinear relationship between body mass index (BMI) and COVID-19 severity, with the lowest risk found among those with BMIs in the healthy weight category and nearing the threshold to overweight.⁷ Risk then increased as BMI rose.

Among the adults who were hospitalized with COVID-19 from March to December 2020, 28.3% were overweight and 50.8% were obese — over 79%.⁸ Both overweight and obesity were risk factors for mechanical ventilation, while obesity was a risk factor for hospitalization and death, particularly among those aged 65 years and under. Even the CDC noted that these findings highlighted the need for “policies to support healthy behaviors.”⁹

Neman is far from the first or only person to call for efforts to focus on healthier living during the pandemic. In July 2021, Joel Hirschhorn, member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and America’s Frontline Doctors, also stated that governments have missed a public health opportunity by not issuing recommendations for effective and sustainable weight loss to lower your risk for severe COVID-19 infection and death:¹⁰

“As someone who has spent most of my waking time for the past 17 months researching the pandemic, I started to think: Why have we not seen the public health establishment mount an aggressive national campaign to get Americans to protect themselves from COVID by losing weight?

Especially because weight gain during the pandemic limitations on food freedom as well as shutdowns and school closing being acknowledged as curtailing physical activity.

Would not fighting obesity qualify as a valid prevention approach to curbing the ill effects of the COVID pandemic? Could the reason for government’s lack of aggressively pursuing an anti-obesity campaign be a bias for promoting vaccines? It seems a likely explanation.”

Even Mild Obesity Doubles Risk of COVID Complications

Researchers from the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna in Italy also looked into BMI and COVID-19 outcomes.¹¹ Although BMI can be misleading in determining whether or not you’re at a healthy weight for your body — in part because it does not take muscle mass into account — it’s the most commonly used measurement for defining obesity.

If your BMI is between 25 and 29.9, you are considered overweight and anything over 30 is considered obese. However, obesity is often divided into categories, with class 1 defined as a BMI of 30 to < 35, class 2 as a BMI of 35 to < 40 and class 3 defined as a BMI of 40 or higher, and considered “extreme” or “severe” obesity.¹²

Patients with mild obesity had a 2.5 times greater risk of respiratory failure and a five times greater risk of being admitted to an ICU compared to nonobese patients. Those with a BMI of 35 and over were also 12 times more likely to die from COVID-19.¹³

“Whereas a BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2 identifies a population of patients at high risk for severe illness, a BMI ≥ 35 kg/m2 dramatically increases the risk of death,” the researchers explained.¹⁴

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