Lifestyle Changes and Body Mass Index during COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown: An Italian Online-Survey

Abstract

Background. COVID-19 pandemic has imposed a period of contingency measures, including total or partial lockdowns all over the world leading to several changes in lifestyle/eating behaviours. This retrospective cohort study aimed at investigating Italian adult population lifestyle changes during COVID-19 pandemic “Phase 1” lockdown (8 March–4 May 2020) and discriminate between positive and negative changes and BMI (body mass index) variations (ΔBMI). Methods. A multiple-choice web-form survey was used to collect retrospective data regarding lifestyle/eating behaviours during “Phase 1” in the Italian adult population. According to changes in lifestyle/eating behaviours, the sample was divided into three classes of changes: “negative change”, “no change”, “positive change”. For each class, correlations with ΔBMI were investigated. Results. Data were collected from 1304 subjects (973F/331M). Mean ΔBMI differed significantly (p < 0.001) between classes, and was significantly related to water intake, alcohol consumption, physical activity, frequency of “craving or snacking between meals”, dessert/sweets consumption at lunch. Conclusions. During “Phase 1”, many people faced several negative changes in lifestyle/eating behaviours with potential negative impact on health. These findings highlight that pandemic exacerbates nutritional issues and most efforts need to be done to provide nutrition counselling and public health services to support general population needs.

Eating Behaviour Changes during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review of Longitudinal Studies

“…The current systematic review, which included twenty-three studies, provides a comprehensive overview of eating behaviour characteristics associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Consistent with previous reviews, several outcomes, such as overeating [26,31,46,47] and the influence of personal preferences on food choices [32][33][34][35]44], have been observed. However, this systematic review also found that the frequency of meals is not associated with the amount of food eaten [32,36,40].…”

Use of Food Services by Consumers in the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic. How the Eating Habits of Consumers Changed in View of the New Disease Risk Factors?

“…Similar relationships are also indicated by other authors, including an increase in consumption of animal products and snacks [53,113], increasing salty snacks [32], increasing fat consumption [31], increasing 'junk food' consumption [61], snacking between meals [59], increased use of alcohol [65], and increasing sweets [34,65], especially during the lockdown. Authors [35,69,114] indicated that the stress associated with pandemic influenced on increases in emotional food of consumption, tasty but with high energy value.…”

“…The transition period associated with a pandemic situation, therefore, has the potential to change eating habits, forcing most people to stay at home, sometimes in home-offices, for long periods, often with unlimited access to food in home and less physical activity [ 28 ]. Staying at home for a long time may favor snacking between meals, eating ‘junk food’ snacks, and drinking alcohol, and it may affect the consumer’s individual choices about cooking at home, buying ready-to-eat products, as well as using takeaway food services [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ]. The perceived risk of COVID-19 and guidelines for minimizing personal contact might have been discouraging consumers from using gastronomy during the pandemic [ 37 , 38 ].…”

“…Some studies indicate the socio-economic effects of pandemic on individual aspects of the world economy [ 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 ]. Many previous research papers [ 14 , 28 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 53 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 ] conducted during the pandemic were devoted to the impact of the situation on eating habits, adherence to a the Mediterranean diet in Italy, a potential protective role of micronutrients, phytochemicals and Mediterranean diet against COVID-19, the potential to increase the stress level and its associated impact on the pre-existing diseases such as diabetes and changes in the diet of people or the impact of nutritional status in patients with COVID-19 and those who have had the disease [ 61 , 72 , 73 , 74 ]. So far, only a few studies [ 31 , 63 ] have analyzed the impact of the pandemic on use of food services.…”

Diet Intervention Study through Telemedicine Assistance for Systemic Nickel Allergy Syndrome Patients during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Recently, Tárraga López et al explored the usual dietary pattern prior to confinement and assessed the adherence to the Mediterranean diet in 490 Spanish adults without evidence of clinically relevant changes in body composition [41]. A recent Italian online survey by Maffoni et al demonstrated a slight but significant increase in BMI during the COVID-19 pandemic and stratification by lifestyle changes revealed a significant variation in BMI: negative lifestyle changes were correlated with increased BMI and positive lifestyle changes with decreased BMI [42]. It is reasonable to assume that the positive impact of our dietary intervention could depend on the significant adherence rate found after only 15 days, reaching 80% after 1 month of diet.…”