The dietary impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

Martin O'Connell, Kate Smith and Rebekah Stroud

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic led to significant changes in people's budgets, the opportunity cost of their time, and where they can purchase and consume food. We use novel data on food and non-alcoholic drink purchases from stores, takeaways, restaurants and other outlets to estimate the impact of the pandemic on the diets of a large, representative panel of British households. We find that a substantial and persistent increase in calories consumed at home more than offset reductions in calories eaten out. Households increased total calories relative to pre-pandemic by 280 per adult per day from March to July 2020, and by 150 from July to the end of 2020. Although quantity increased, there was little change in diet quality over the pandemic. All socioeconomic groups increased their calorie intake, with the largest rises for the highest SES households and the smallest for retired ones. We estimate that the changes could increase the proportion of adults who are overweight by at least five percentage points, two years after the pandemic onset.

Keywords: Covid-19 pandemic; diet; health; nutrition; obesity; Covid-19; coronavirus; ES/V003968/1; under the Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy (CPP; grant number ES/T014334/1); under the Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice (CeMMAP; grant number ES/P008909/1); and under the Open Research Area (ORA; grant number ES/VO13513/1). (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 I12 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2022-07-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Journal of Health Economics, 1, July, 2022, 84. ISSN: 0167-6296

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/115558/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The dietary impact of the COVID-19 pandemic (2022)
Working Paper: The dietary impact of the COVID-19 pandemic (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:115558

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