A new RunRepeat survey found that 35% of United States citizens gained weight since the start of the pandemic.

The pandemic and quarantine has had many effects, but the months of staying in, bored eating chips and freshly baked banana bread with gyms closed has caught up to many.

The Fitness Research Director at RunRepeat, Nick Rizzo, did a study surveying more than 19,000 people about their weight during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rizzo found that 35% admitted to gaining weight, and 71% of those gained more than five pounds.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, especially when the weather wasn’t great, I would just lay in bed all day because I hated doing home workouts,” UW Oshkosh senior Courtney Stubbe said. “I was also constantly snacking, and being that I’m over 21, I used alcohol to deal with the depression and stress of COVID, which made me gain even more weight.”

A junior who prefers to remain anonymous said that they gained weight because “What else was I going to do besides eat? Quarantine was basically just eating and then waiting to eat again.”

UWO junior Keegan Lafferty said he gained weight because he got caught up in bored eating and “binge watching TV shows, which makes [him] snack more than normal”; his favorite COVID snacks were paninis and potstickers.

40.52% of individuals who gained weight during the pandemic were from the U.S.

UWO senior Vicky Schubert said that she “picked up the hobby of baking because it’s something fun to do at home or indoors,” but now she always has sweets around.

Schubert is not alone. When COVID first hit, everyone was posting about their best banana bread recipes or chocolate chip cookies, which tend to be higher in calories and are more addicting.

Contrary to the U.S., 40.54% of United Kingdom citizens surveyed lost weight.

However, some U.S. citizens were able to get on this trend like Kat Aasen, a UWO senior, who “realized very quickly that frozen pizzas, chips and cookies just wasn’t going to cut it every day,” so she “started substituting for healthier options that were still yummy,” like her favorite: cut up apples and peanut butter.

Aasen said she also pushed herself to get out of bed and take her dogs for a walk or go rollerblading, which made her feel a lot better and more active.

Since the pandemic started, Stubbe has also started to deal with the depression and anxiety from COVID and build some healthy habits.

Unfortunately for college freshmen, they now have the quarantine 15 and freshman 15 to worry about.