MADISON, Wis— Obesity can more than double a person's risk of being hospitalized with Coronavirus. It's a growing issue in the U.S. As about 42 percent of adults are obese and an additional 32 percent are overweight.

“Being a patient that is obese or living with chronic inflammatory disease can really exacerbate the severity of COVID-19,” said Dr. Jessica Lancaster, Ph.D., an immunology researcher at the Mayo Clinic.

Mayo Clinic doctors say the risk of obesity appears to increase the risk of COVID-19 by 50%. They say chances of hospitalization double and morbidity increases by 50%. The Centers for Disease Control say the risk of hospitalization from coronavirus for obese people is three times higher.

Doctors say it's largely because obesity comes with other medical complications like diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension.

“So it's not only obesity itself, but it's the complications and co-morbidities that overall increase this risk,” said Dr. Donald Hensrud, preventive medicine expert at the Mayo Clinic. 

The risks start at overweight but become more pronounced as a person becomes obese.

Doctors say the increase in fat sends messages to the body about inflammation. Those messages are very similar to the ones your body sends when it needs help from the immune system to fight infection.

“If you were to imagine that there's increased inflammation, it's kind of like there's this air raid siren that's constantly going off and so the local inflammation that is important for resolving the virus itself, that can kind of get lost in the noise,” Lancaster said.

Lancaster says this all leads to an overactive immune system and one that will likely struggle more to fight off the coronavirus.

This is why doctors encourage healthy habits, like improving sleep, eating better, and introducing exercise where you can.

Hensrud said you don't need to go overboard with the exercise either.

“The tortoise wins this race, just to start and do something will start to reverse some of the effects,” he said. “And you can see effects relatively quickly.”

That's something gyms are telling people too, trying to offer workouts in a variety of ways.

“We definitely are encouraging our members, whether they are ready to come into the club and work out or whether they want to do our home workouts and our on-demand workouts, that this is essential for their wellbeing,” said Melissa Ernst, part-owner of Harbor Athletic Club in Middleton.

Ernst said if someone is just returning to working out for the first time since the pandemic began, to ease in and not be discouraged if you aren't immediately in the same physical shape as before.

“Don't try to jump in back to where you started eight months ago,” Ernst said. “Just come in with a mindset that you are doing the right thing for your mind and your body and you need to take a step that is not a jump.”