Living through the COVID-19 Pandemic: Impact and Lessons on Dietary Behavior and Physical Well-Being

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jan 6;19(2):642. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19020642.

Abstract

The aim of this review is to highlight the spectrum on which human behavior has been affected by blanket restriction measures and on a wider scale, the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the human behaviors that have been impacted by the COVID-19 lockdown are dietary behavior and nutrition, food options and food delivery usage, physical activity and sedentary behaviors. This is important in planning effective public health strategies with minimal detriment to all subsets of society as well as improving the distribution of government aid to populations that are more severely affected. Our main purpose is to present the literature from a rapidly growing pool of scientific research to hopefully enable a better and more comprehensive understanding of the effects of this pandemic and the lessons learnt from the accompanying restrictions, as well as policy recommendations that can be made in national pandemic responses in the future.

Keywords: COVID-19; dietary behavior; lockdown; nutrition; physical activity.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19*
  • Communicable Disease Control
  • Diet
  • Humans
  • Pandemics
  • SARS-CoV-2