key: cord-0774051-a0ejus6m authors: Chopra, Sakshi; Ranjan, Piyush; Singh, Vishwajeet; Kumar, Suraj; Arora, Mehak; Hasan, Mohamed Shuaib; Kasiraj, Rhytha; Suryansh; Kaur, Divjyot; Vikram, Naval K.; Malhotra, Anita; Kumari, Archana; Klanidhi, Kamal Bandhu; Baitha, Upendra title: Impact of COVID-19 on lifestyle-related behaviours- a cross-sectional audit of responses from nine hundred and ninety-five participants from India date: 2020-10-06 journal: Diabetes Metab Syndr DOI: 10.1016/j.dsx.2020.09.034 sha: a9cad470b11438703e02b95274a08a09c694b10d doc_id: 774051 cord_uid: a0ejus6m BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The impact of measures taken to contain COVID-19 on lifestyle-related behaviour is undefined in Indian population. The current study was undertaken to assess the impact of COVID-19 on lifestyle-related behaviours: eating, physical activity and sleep behaviour. METHODS: The study is a cross-sectional web-based survey. A validated questionnaire to assess the changes in lifestyle-related behaviour was administered on adults across India using a Google online survey platform. RESULTS: A total of 995 responses (58.5% male, mean age 33.3 years) were collected. An improvement in healthy meal consumption pattern and a restriction of unhealthy food items was observed, especially in the younger population (age <30 years). A reduction in physical activity coupled with an increase in daily screen time was found especially among men and in upper-socio-economic strata. Quarantine induced stress and anxiety showed an increase by a unit in nearly one-fourth of the participants. CONCLUSIONS: COVID-19 marginally improved the eating behaviour, yet one-third of participants gained weight as physical activity declined significantly coupled with an increase in screen and sitting time. Mental health was also adversely affected. A detailed understanding of these factors can help to develop interventions to mitigate the negative lifestyle behaviours that have manifested during COVID-19. COVID-19 is a global burden which continues to redefine daily lifestyle-related habits in a significant manner as the pandemic progresses through its different phases. Public health recommendations and government measures taken to abate infection have indirectly impacted food availability, dietary quality, normal daily activities, access to recreational public settings, social activities, work and financial security [1] . These factors compound over time to radically change lifestyle-related behaviours, especially daily eating, activity and sleep behaviours that are known to be independent risk factors for metabolic complications such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disorders [2, 3] . Few preliminary studies from the west have highlighted a negative impact on various lifestylerelated behaviours as the potential implication of COVID-19. However, these studies were done during the complete lockdown phase and suffer from methodological limitations like less representative sample and non-validated tools for data collection. Moreover, the interplay of the severity of COVID-19 infection with different social, economic and cultural constructs in determining the extent of changes in lifestyle-related behaviours might vary from country to country. There is a lack of evidence that evaluates the effect of COVID-19 on lifestyle-related behaviours in India. It is important to investigate some key questions such as which lifestyle behaviours are most affected, how much is the impact of COVID-19 on these behaviours, what are the reasons for these changes and which demographic section is the most impacted. Considering these questions, we undertook this study to evaluate the overall impact of COVID-19 on lifestyle changes experienced by individuals during the pandemic. The answers to these questions will establish a fundamental basis to develop appropriate recommendations for lifestyle modifications during this time. A web-based cross-sectional study was conducted on the general population to assess the impact of COVID-19 on daily lifestyle-related practices such as dietary, activity and sleep pattern using a validated questionnaire. The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee This study was a rapid, large cross-sectional online survey conducted during the unlock phase (15 th August 2020 to 30 th August 2020) across various cities, towns and villages in India. The data was collected using Google Form web survey platform and telephonic interview. A standard study invitation message along with the link to the online survey was shared through personal and social contacts of the research group members via email, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. We also asked the participants to share the study link to increase study participants, which allowed us to conduct a nationwide survey, especially during the pandemic situation. In cases, where participants had limited literacy levels or technical knowledge to fill the Google Form by themselves, the investigators conducted a telephonic interview and filled the form on their behalf. A brief description of the study, its objectives and the declaration of anonymity and confidentiality were given to the participants before the start of the questionnaire shared via Google Form. Informed consent was taken from all the participants at the time of enrollment either by checking. Participants were also requested to be honest in their responses. Following this, the participants answered differential questions on the changes experienced in their lifestyle before and during the pandemic. During the survey, participants were able to stop study participation and leave the questionnaire at any stage before the submission process; if doing so, their responses would not be saved. Responses were saved only by clicking on the "submit" button provided at the end of the questionnaire. The principle of maximum diversity was followed to recruit a representative sample for this study. Quota sampling technique was used to identify the quotas based on different demographic variables such as age, gender, socio-economic strata and place of residence. The number of J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f participants in each quota was compared with the prevalence of different categories in Indian population and efforts were made to sustain maximum representativeness. A total of 1058 responses were collected using the Google Form link and telephonic survey, after excluding responses that met exclusion criteria such as younger participants (age <18 years), duplicates and invalid entries. The final data included 995 participants (as shown in Supplementary Figure 1 ). The electronic survey questionnaire was designed to assess changes in multiple lifestyle-related behaviors such as eating, physical activity, sleep and other health related behaviours during the COVID-19 outbreak. The differential questionnaire used in this study was developed and validated as an extension of a short version lifestyle related practices questionnaire in Indian adults [4] . The questionnaire has three sections assessing socio-demographic details, changes in lifestyle related behaviour and COVID specific reasons for the changes in these behaviors. Section A comprises questions relating to general information and demographic data, selfreported anthropometric data and one question of change in weight status during COVID-19. Section B consists of two parts with 24 items. Part A (A1 to A24) assesses the baseline lifestylerelated behaviours and Part B (B1 to B24) evaluates changes in different lifestyle related behaviors such as eating habits, physical activity and sleep pattern during the pandemic. The domain on eating behaviour consists of 12 items on meal pattern, portion size, frequency of meals, food group consumption pattern, emotional eating and intake of high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) foods and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) consumption. The domain on physical activity pattern has six items focusing on different components of activity such as aerobic exercise, involvement in household chores, leisure related activity, work-related sitting time and screen time. Two items are for sleep patterns, one item for daily stress levels and two items for stress related addictive behaviours such as smoking and alcohol consumption. The five point Likert-response choices are as follow: 'not routinely', 'one to two times a week', 'three to four times a week', 'five to six times a week' and 'almost daily'. The magnitude of the responses ranges from 5 (most acceptable behaviour) to 1 (least acceptable behaviour). Section C has 6 items assessing the perceived COVID-19 specific reasons for changes in lifestyle-related behaviours. J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f Descriptive statistics of the participants' baseline characteristics and responses were provided as frequency and percentage for categorical variables. Continuous variables were reported as mean and standard deviation or median and range/interquartile range according to the distribution. The responses for Before-COVID-19 lifestyle scores and During-COVID-19 lifestyle scores were assessed and these scores were subtracted for each item giving the mean difference scores which were associated with demographic variables. The association between the categorical variables was assessed using Chi-squares test or Fisher's Exact test. The differences of continuous variables between two groups was assessed using t-test or Wilcoxon test. While comparing more than two groups ANOVA with bonferroni correction was done. For all analyses, P≤0.05 was considered as statistically significant. All statistical analyses were performed by using STATA/SE version 14.2 (StataCorp LP, College Station, TX, USA). The demographic details of the included participants (n=995) is shown in Table 1 . The sample has slightly higher male participation (58.5%) with the mean age of 33.3 (14.5) (range, years. The representation from different socio-economic strata (according to Kuppuswamy scale) and place of residence was fairly equal, with slightly greater number of participants from metropolitan cities (43.1%). The mean self-reported body mass index (BMI) was 24.8 ± 4.7 kg/m 2 . One-third participants reported a gain in weight during COVID-19 pandemic. Responses for differential items assessing the changes in lifestyle-related practice before and during COVID-19 is given in Table 2 . The habit of consuming meals routinely at regular intervals has slightly increased during COVID-19 (42.5% vs 49.7%). The participants refraining from unhealthy eating behaviours such as consumption of fried food (64.1% vs 81.6%), junk food (44.3% vs 62.6%), fast food (53.2% vs 67.6%) and sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) (50.1 vs 51.6%) also increased. Participants reported marginal improvement in the frequency of J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f consumption of different food groups such as fruits and vegetables (34 vs 37.8%), milk and its products (38% vs 40%) and pulses, meats and egg (18.2% vs 24%) during COVID-19. In the physical activity domain, an increase in participants not routinely exercising for 30 minutes was observed (38.4% vs 50.4%). Although, participants exercising more than three days a week (45.4% vs 45.1%) before the pandemic maintained the habit of exercising during the pandemic as well. Participants refraining from routinely involvement in leisure-related physical activity also increased by more than double (29.4% vs 65.9%). One-third participants reported a daily screen time of 4-5 hours during COVID-19 (13.7% vs 32.5%). Participants reporting more than eight hours of sleep increased (10.2% vs 27.8%) but the overall quality of sleep marginally declined (50.7% vs 48.1%) and overall stress amongst participants increased (24.9% vs 38.2%). The comparison of mean scores of lifestyle related behaviours before and during COVID-19 is shown in Table 3 . There was a significant increase in routine consumption of meals at regular The frequency distribution of per unit difference in lifestyle scores before and during COVID is shown in Table 4 . The change in scores was calculated by subtracting during-COVID lifestyle scores from before-COVID lifestyle scores. In the eating behaviour domain, half of the participants experienced no change in regular meal pattern, whereas for 29.8% participants this habit was improved but for 18.56% this habit was worsened. The intake of high protein foods such as pulses, egg and meats increased during COVID-19 (26.4%). The intake of unhealthy food items such as fast food (18.9%), junk food (1.98%), fried food (25.3%) and SSB (16.3%) improved by one unit. Participants experienced a reduction in physical activity by 9.5% in comparison of the improved participants (22.05%) and leisure-related physical activity (45.63%) was three times higher than improved participants (15.68%). In addition to this, the daily sitting time increased for 33.07% participants. Besides, the time spent daily on screen time increased by one unit in one-third of the sample (30.65%) and overall sleeping hours increased in one-fourth of the sample (25.53%). Almost one-fourth (23.02%) participants reported an increase in stress level by one unit. Although, overall social support from the family and friends (20.8%) during COVID-19 improved as well. The reasons for change in lifestyle related behaviour is given in Supplementary Table 1 . Factors such as fear of coronavirus infection (43.8%), preferring home-cooked food (25.2%) and less involvement in eating out and socializing (23.6%) were the prime reasons for improvement in healthy eating and decline in junk food consumption. Although, participants involved in physical activity by walking (28.9%), at-home workout sessions (18.9%) and yoga (16%); adverse changes in physical activity levels were reported due to lack of motivation (24.5%), time availability (25.3%) and restricted access to parks, dance and fitness centre (28.6%). Besides, participants' fear of getting infected by coronavirus (23.6%), worrying about their family (20.2%) followed by boredom and loneliness (18.2%) and financial loss (14.7%) were most commonly reported reasons for adverse changes in stress and anxiety levels during COVID-19. J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f The association of mean difference of during-COVID domain-wise lifestyle scores from before-COVID domain-wise lifestyle scores was studied with respect to different demographic groups as shown in Table 5 . In the age category, a significant improvement in overall eating behaviour during COVID-19 (2.44[6.49], P<0.001) was seen in the younger age group (≤30 years). Besides, the overall physical activity worsen in all age groups (P<0.001). Also, the overall physical activity worsened in both the genders, but men experienced a greater significant reduction in their activity status (-1. J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f The outbreak of COVID-19 and measures of its containment has evident impact on the lifestyle related behaviors in the population [5] . Experts believe that lifestyle related predictors of weight gain and cardiometabolic risk are modifiable and should be screened and addressed during COVID to prevent obesity and maintain general wellbeing [6] . The current study is a cross sectional web-based survey conducted to understand the impact of COVID-19 on different lifestyle behaviors, severity of this impact across different demographic sections and COVID-19 specific reasons for changes in lifestyle. We recruited a representative sample of 995 participants across India to complete a pre-validated questionnaire on lifestyle related behaviors using a webbased platform. The data collected was subjected to rigorous statistical analysis to generate robust inferences regarding the impact of COVID-19 on lifestyle related behaviors in terms of both magnitude and direction. The key findings of the survey divulge certain trends in the eating habits and physical activity behaviour. Firstly, a healthy eating trend was observed in terms of slight improvement in routine consumption of meals at regular intervals and consumption of protein-rich foods such as pulses, eggs and meat along with restricted intake of high fat, sugar, salt (HFSS) food items, especially in the younger population (age <30 years). Secondly, there was a significant reduction in moderate intensity aerobic exercises as well as leisure related activities coupled with an increase in daily screen and sitting time. Overall, physical inactivity was comparatively higher in men and participants belonging to upper socio-economic groups. Thirdly, quarantine induced stress and anxiety increased by a unit in almost one-fourth of the participants. The findings indicate that the participants improved slightly in terms of consuming meals at regular intervals in routine. Regular meal pattern as a construct is often described as an individual's eating patterns at the level of a 'meal', such as a main meal (for example, breakfast, lunch or dinner) or a smaller-sized meal (for example, supper or snack) [7] . The consumption of nutritionally balanced small and frequent meals is associated with better dietary quality and is a common clinical recommendation for weight loss and reduction in metabolic comorbidities [8] . Certain experts believe that a proportion of individuals may have marginally improved metabolism and other health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic by adhering to the following dietary behaviors: (i) reducing meal frequency, (ii) consuming regular (i.e., breakfast J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f (about 40% of daily total energy), lunch (30% of daily total energy) and dinner (30% of daily total energy) and having good quality meals (e.g., more fresh vegetables, good quality protein source, avoiding refined and high glycemic foods) [9] . The participants in our study also reported higher consumption of protein-rich foods such as pulses, eggs and meat. This is, however, contrary to the findings of another study conducted in the west, which found that daily consumption of regular meals had marginally lower contribution to the overall improvement in eating behavior during COVID-19 (10) . A possible reason for this difference could be higher focus on home cooked food in the Indian households. The results of this study highlight a significant but limited (mostly by one unit) improvement in quality of meals consumed by reduction in the consumption of calorie-dense fast food, fried food and SSBs. Contrary to our findings, some studies suggest that confinement increased intake of HFSS food items, which could be attributed to eating out of anxiety or boredom, a dip in motivation to maintain healthy eating or an increase in mood-driven eating [11, 12] . However, in our study that was conducted in India, the participants reported less socializing and eating out, preference to home cooked meals, time availability for meal preparation, incorporation of immunity-boosting foods to maintain health and better family support in maintenance of healthy eating pattern as prime reasons for reduction in unhealthy eating behaviors. It can also be noted that socializing and eating out practices mostly governed unhealthy food consumption in our sample. Despite recommendations that COVID-19 preventive measures should not hinder people from being physically active, present results show that there has been a decline in physical activity levels. A reduction in engagement in physical activity at all levels coupled with increase in daily sitting and screen time due to confinement was prominently found across the literature [10] . It is evident that government recommendations to limit outside movement and restrictions on social gathering (group sports and walking or exercise classes), availability (sports and gym facilities) and accessibility (public recreational spaces such as community centers parks and sports grounds) is linked to decrease in active participation in exercise and normal leisure related activity such as walking, grocery shopping, gardening etc. Despite counteracting measures taken to increase overall activity at home by offering online "at home physical activity classes" through various social media platforms, present results indicate that it has not been possible for J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f individuals to adequately maintain their normal activity patterns with suggested home activities [13] . The decline in time spent in engaging in physical activity was accompanied by increased screen and sitting time. A substantial increment in the number of hours (4-5 hours) spent in front of the screen for the recreational or work purpose was seen in our study as well. COVID-19 has limited day-to-day social engagements such as workplace interactions, participation in recreational activities, socializing and eating out which might lead to an increase in mental health distress. We also found out that one-fourth of the participants reported an increase in stress and anxiety level by one unit due to fear of getting infected by coronavirus, boredom, loneliness and financial loss at work. Similar findings were reported by a number of studies showing moderate levels of quarantine induced stress and anxiety in Indian adults with more than 80% adults preoccupied with fearful thoughts of getting coronavirus infection [14, 15] . The study also highlights the association of demographic variables with changes in lifestyle related behaviors due to COVID-19 pandemic. In our study, a significant improvement was observed in overall eating behavior in the younger age group (<30 years). Similar findings were reported in an Italian survey, where the highest compliance to a traditional Mediterranean diet (high in antioxidants from fruits and vegetables and MUFA from olive oil and fish) was exhibited by younger people (18-30 years) [12] . Eating behavior also significantly improved in upper socio-economic status but conversely the physical activity decreased. Despite reduction in food availability, the upper strata of society had the economic means and time to procure and maintain access to healthier ingredients (such as fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, oilseed, milk and products) and transform them into healthy meals. It has been already seen in China that level of lockdown and socio-economic status defined level of physical activity [16] . The involvement of lower strata in delivering essential services to restore economic means for surviving the pandemic might have led to an increased daily overall activity level. We also found out that changes in these lifestyle related behaviors also led to weight gain in onethird of the sample. Since individuals with obesity and associated metabolic comorbidities such as diabetes and cardiometabolic disease are more prone to getting COVID-19 infection [17, 18] , the control on adaptation of negative lifestyle related behaviors becomes a crucial preventive step in containing the spread [19] . The findings also indicate that decline in physical activity and J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f increase in stress outweighed marginal improvement in dietary behavior, which might have led to a positive calorie balance, further leading to weight gain in the sample. The results from this study are concurrent with western literature in establishing that adaptation of negative lifestyle related behaviors to abate coronavirus infection are one of the potential consequences of COVID-19 pandemic. To our knowledge, this is the first study in India to understand the extent of changes in lifestyle related behaviors and its underlying COVID specific reasons, in order to counteract these changes for maintenance of optimal health status at individual and community level. Human behaviour is a product of a combination of environmental, cultural, economic and social variables, since all these variables are known to vary with changing situations during COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need for further research to identify the correlated that has maximum impact on these behaviors to develop effective public health promotion strategies. The increase in usage of information and communication technology during pandemic should be used to our advantage in devising 'one stop lifestyle applications' to disseminate knowledge, change pandemic driven attitude and provide specific action points to manage healthy lifestyle habits amidst pandemic. The information on demographic variation in lifestyle practice during COVID-19 can help to devise user-friendly behavioral support interventions using fitness applications, video streaming and motivation support. This is the first pan-India study which aimed to recruit a representative sample for collection of data using a pre-validated questionnaire to study the impact of COVID-19 on lifestyle related behaviors. Some limitations of the study are possibilities of reporting bias, due to e-survey and telephonic survey, validity of answers is a general problem of online surveys, differential approach described in the methods section. In conclusion, the results of the study indicate a mixed effect of the preventive measures enforced/adopted to control coronavirus on the lifestyle related behavior with a significant improvement in regular meal consumption pattern and healthy eating behavior and reduction in unhealthy food intake as positive indicators and significant reduction in physical activity and increase in sitting time, and screen time and stress as negative indicator. Even though there were improvements in eating behaviors, but its affect was limited. The negative effect of lifestyle J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f related behaviors would outweigh the positive effect of one unit correction in eating behavior, which would lead to higher incidents of weight gain and associated metabolic complications. These observations have potential implications that could aid the development of physical activity and nutritional recommendations to maintain health during the COVID-19 pandemic. 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