ArticleFrontiers in public health2026
Trends in overweight prevalence among university freshmen and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: a repeated cross-sectional study.
Article in Frontiers in public health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
Background: Existing studies on body mass index (BMI) among university students have largely focused on short-term changes during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, with limited evidence on long-term trajectories across different pandemic phases. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate trends in BMI and overweight prevalence among Chinese university freshmen from 2016 to 2024 using repeated cross-sectional data and to quantify both the immediate and sustained effects of COVID-19 policy transitions. Methods: Anthropometric data were collected from successive cohorts of freshmen from a Chinese university between 2016 and 2024. BMI was calculated and categorized into overweight and non-overweight groups. Long-term trends in BMI and overweight prevalence were assessed using linear and non-linear models. Interrupted time series (ITS) analysis was further applied to evaluate changes across the pre-, during-, and post-pandemic periods. Subgroup analyses were conducted by sex and academic discipline. Results: A total of 39,478 freshmen were included. Overall, a rising trend in BMI and overweight prevalence was observed among university students over the study period. Crude ITS analysis showed that BMI increased gradually before the pandemic ( Conclusion: BMI trajectories were significantly altered by the pandemic, with a marked post-pandemic acceleration exceeding pre-existing trends. Future longitudinal studies are needed to clarify the behavioral mechanisms underlying these trends.
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