Pandemic lures Singaporeans toward less healthy food choices

Sheltering in place appears to have changed the way Singaporeans eat, but not for the better.

In a recent study, online food ordering patterns during the COVID-19 lockdown, or Circuit Breaker (CB) as it is known locally, showed a greater appetite for barbeque or fried foods. These were favoured over food items with vegetables in them.

“We used a data set of real food orders instead of surveys, and this ordering data could reflect the actual changes in eating habits,” said a research team led by Dr Sumit Agarwal from the National University of Singapore.

“Our results suggested an association between customers’ diets and unhealthier eating habits during the COVID-19 lockdown, and changes in eating habits persisted after lockdown measures were removed,” Agarwal added.

The analysis included 42,495 observations involving 11,372 customers and 462 restaurants. Each observation with food items corresponded to an order placed by an encrypted customer. The Chinese New Year (CNY) 2020 was designated as day 1. CB period covered days 74–129, and the post-CB period included days 130–220; days –89 to 73 was the benchmark period.

Relative to the benchmark period, the CB period saw a 15-percent (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 12–19) decrease in the probability that the order contained vegetables. At the same time, there was a marked 11-percent (95 percent CI, 8–14) and 4-percent (95 percent CI, 2–6) increase in the probability of an order in the barbecue/fried food or beverage category (p<0.001), respectively. [JAMA Netw Open 2021;4:e2126466]

The observed trends persisted during the post-CB period. Furthermore, the probability of ordering in the vegetable category dropped by 21 percent (95 percent CI, 6–37) during days 61–70 when the advance work-from-home order was implemented and the lockdown was announced (p<0.001).

“After excluding customers who placed their first orders during [days −89 to day 220 of 2020 CNY] to eliminate the concerns about new customers’ distinct tastes, our results were consistent with baseline results,” Agarwal said.

The findings are consistent with previous questionnaire-based studies whose respondents reported unhealthier eating habits during the lockdown. According to Agarwal, unhealthy eating behaviour formed during the pandemic could lead to undesirable long-term health consequences, such as coronary heart disease, chronic diseases, and Alzheimer disease. [Nutrients 2020;12:3269; Nutrients 2020;12:1657]

“[As we] could not measure the exact proportions of nutritional ingredients, more data is needed to study the long-term dietary changes and health outcomes,” he said.

Despite its limitations, the study indicates that dietary changes occurred during and after the pandemic, Agarwal stated. “Governments should properly guide the public regarding their dietary choices when implementing lockdown policies.”