University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States; Institute for Fiscal Studies, United Kingdom.
Institute for Fiscal Studies, United Kingdom; London School of Economics, United Kingdom.
J Health Econ. 2022 Jul;84:102641. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2022.102641. Epub 2022 Jun 2.
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.
新冠疫情大流行导致人们的预算、时间机会成本以及购买和消费食物的地点发生了重大变化。我们利用有关食品和非酒精饮料购买的新颖数据，这些数据来自商店、外卖、餐馆和其他销售点，以估计疫情对大量具有代表性的英国家庭饮食的影响。我们发现，家庭中在家中摄入的卡路里大量且持续增加，抵消了外出就餐所减少的卡路里。从 2020 年 3 月到 7 月，每个成年人每天摄入的卡路里总量比大流行前增加了 280 卡路里，从 7 月到 2020 年底增加了 150 卡路里。尽管数量有所增加，但大流行期间饮食质量几乎没有变化。所有社会经济群体都增加了卡路里的摄入量，其中 SES 最高的家庭增幅最大，退休人员的增幅最小。我们估计，这些变化可能会使至少 5%的成年人在大流行开始两年后超重。
