Diet quality briefly improved during the pandemic

New research led by Pennsylvania State University has found that American diets may have improved in quality and diversity following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study revealed that during lockdowns, citizens’ diet quality improved by up to 8.5% and food diversity by up to 2.6%.

Major food shifts during the pandemic 

“In addition to presenting a direct risk to human health and creating adverse shocks to health care systems, the global COVID-19 pandemic disrupted food acquisition and consumption in ways that had not been seen in generations,” wrote the researchers.

“In the U.S., starting in March 2020, the pandemic shut down almost all restaurants and cafeterias and disrupted agricultural supply chains so that retail food shoppers encountered stock-outs of some items for the first time in decades.” 

“Since approximately 50 percent of U.S. food dollars are spent on food away from home (FAFH) options, the pandemic-induced closures and lockdowns set the stage for a major shift from FAFH establishments to supermarkets and other food retailers that remained open during the pandemic.” 

The study authors noted that this shift may have dramatically affected the composition of food acquisitions and overall diet quality.

American diet quality during the pandemic

“When dine-in restaurants closed, our diets got a little more diverse and a little healthier,” said co-author Edward Jaenicke, an expert in nutrition at Penn State. These findings suggest that shifts away from restaurant eating could positively impact Americans’ food diversity and healthfulness.

Before the pandemic, American diets were generally considered unhealthy, with only slight improvements over the years. Jaenicke’s team was initially studying how people might feed themselves after a global catastrophe, but the pandemic presented a real-world scenario to study these impacts.

Focus of the research 

For the study, the researchers analyzed data from over 41,570 households in the NielsenIQ Homescan Consumer Panel, comparing grocery purchases before and after the pandemic-induced closures. 

The team designated each household’s post-pandemic period as the weeks following their county’s school closures in 2020, allowing them to establish a causal effect of the pandemic on food purchases.

Increased food diversity and diet quality

The study found modest increases in food diversity and significant improvements in diet quality during the months following school closures. These patterns were observed across various demographics, although households with young children, lower incomes, and without a car showed smaller increases.

According to the experts, several factors could account for these findings. The closure of restaurants, typically sources of less healthy food, might have led to healthier eating at home. 

Additionally, the pandemic may have heightened health consciousness among consumers, leading them to buy healthier and more diverse groceries. 

Supply chain disruptions might have prompted consumers to try new, diverse products. Moreover, school and business closures likely gave households more time to cook and prepare meals.

Food purchasing behavior in the U.S.

“Like prior research, our results confirm that the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically affected the food-purchasing behavior of U.S. households,” wrote the study authors.

“However, unlike other studies, we find modest temporary increases in food diversity (of up to 2.6 percent compared to the prior year) as measured by the Berry Index and larger temporary increases in diet quality (of up to 8.5 percent) as measured by the USDAScore.”

“To put these results in context, no study that we know of investigates pandemic-induced changes in food diversity and very few studies investigate diet quality changes in the U.S. market.”

Natural disasters and brand switching 

Jaenicke suggested that future studies could further explore how different disasters affect purchasing and eating habits, providing valuable insights for improving diet and health outcomes.

“It is known that the pandemic caused some stock outs at grocery stores and supermarkets, and it is likely that food-at-home consumers shifted to new foods that led to increased diversity and healthfulness,” noted the study authors. 

“Related research on natural disasters finds that hurricanes in the U.S. cause substantial brand switching in the bottled water category, presumably because their usual brand was not available. It is likely that during the COVID-19 pandemic, unavailable product categories may have caused similar switching behaviors, but on a broader scale.” 

“Our results suggest that at least some of this switching and experimentation with new foods contributed to increases in diversity and healthier food choices that did not completely dissipate by the end of the study period.”

The study is published in the journal PLoS ONE.

—–

Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.

Check us out on EarthSnap, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

—–