Self-reported food choices before and during COVID-19 lockdown

  1. E. Siobhan Mitchell
  2. Qiuchen Yang
  3. Heather Behr
  4. Laura Deluca
  5. Paul Schaffer

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Abstract

Stressful situations can cause changes in individual food choices, most notably, choices of highly rewarding foods that are high in fat or sugar. Few studies have examined how a population’s food choices change during a country-wide stress-inducing event such as the beginning of the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders in the United States. Food data from a digital behavior change weight loss program, which includes an interface for logging meals, were analyzed to assess self-reported food choices from March 5-March 11 (“pre-COVID”) and during the first week of the COVID-19 lockdown (March 12-March 18; “during-COVID”). The final sample consisted of 381,564 participants: 318,076 (83.4%) females, the majority who were aged 45-65 years (45.2%). Results indicate that self-reported servings of fresh fruit and vegetable intake decreased from pre-to during-COVID, while intake of red meat and starchy vegetables increased. More men than women increased their intake of red meat and processed meat. There was less overall change in fruit and vegetable consumption in participants aged 66 and older, compared to younger participants (aged 18-35). The percentage of older participants who reported lean meat and starchy vegetable intake increased, but these groups had a negligible change in younger subjects. More subjects aged 18-35 years reduced their intake of caffeine, desserts, lean meat and salads compared to older participants. No changes were observed in terms of snack or alcoholic beverage intake logged. In conclusion, this study of 381,564 US participants revealed that intake of particular food groups were altered during the first weeks of COVID lockdown.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.15.20131888: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Informed consent to participate in research is included during the sign-up phase of the program, in which users can choose to opt-out.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    There are several limitations to this study. One limitation is that all data are self-reported meal logging, which is susceptible to flawed recall, omissions, or lapses in logging. While some studies have indicated a reasonable correlation of digital food logging data to more traditional methods, results can vary according to the platform used (Rangan et al. 2016; Boushey et al. 2017). The participant data is drawn from a population enrolled in a weight loss program and may not reflect the food choices of those without weight concerns. Additionally, the participant pool is skewed more towards women (83.4%) than men (16.6%). Lastly, changes in COVID-related eating behavior depend on the extent of lockdown in different regions of the US and may not have occurred at the same time periods. However, the large number of participants included in the study (n=381,564) adds robustness to the findings. In conclusion, this observational study explored how food choices changed during the initiation of US COVID stay-at-home orders according to age and gender in a population engaged in weight loss. Further research is needed to understand the factors that influenced food choices and how food choices are modified in similar and dissimilar populations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.06.15.20131888v1 on medRxiv