Booze, baking and bubble bikes
For scientists interested in our collective health, the coronavirus lockdown was an unprecedented and tantalising opportunity. When else have we had a sample of five million, cut off from many of the potentially unhealthy aspects of modern life? Piecing t
WE CHANGED HOW WE ATE
Researchers at Auckland University’s School of Population Health and Victoria University of Wellington looked at how New Zealanders changed their shopping and cooking habits during alert levels 3 and 4 .
The Covid Kai Survey was part of a 40-country study initiated by the University of Antwerp. Its numbers are still being crunched, but early analysis shows some interesting and sobering trends emerging.
More than a quarter of the 3575 respondents reported that they had lost income during the pandemic , and around a third reported they usually struggled to make money last until their next payday, or struggled to afford food.
Respondents said their enjoyment of shopping had decreased and food shopping had become more stressful. ‘‘More people tried to order their food online, but even that was not straightforward, with order slots often booked for weeks in advance’’, says research team leader Dr Sarah Gerritsen.
How healthily we ate likely depended on how stressed we were financially, too. Initial figures showed people ate healthier in level 4 by eating more vegetables, she says.
‘‘If you were in a privileged position with enough money and you stockpiled product so you could avoid the stress of shopping, then you probably did cook healthier food at home.’’
Survey respondents reported making a lot more meals, bread and cakes at home. According to data from Nielsen Scantrack – which records everything that goes across the checkout in supermarkets – comparing the five-week period to April 26 against the same period last year shows significant differences.
Sales in the ‘‘scratch cooking and baking’’ category shot up, with flour showing dollar growth of 113 per cent compared to 2019. Sales of herbs and spices and sugar were up 55 per cent and condiments went up 42 per cent. Countdown says it sold 29 per cent more eggs than usual as Kiwis opted for larger carton sizes, presumably destined for baking projects.
It wasn’t all scratch cooking. For those unused to making every meal at home, convenience foods were popular. Nielsen reported lifts in sales of canned and dried vegetables (up 59 per cent), canned meals (53 per cent), frozen fruit (45 per cent), cooking and simmer sauces (42 per cent), soup (40 per cent), frozen convenience foods (73 per cent), canned fruit (30 per cent) and canned fish and seafood (26 per cent).
While we bought more, by necessity, of almost every food from the supermarket, it appears Kiwis tended to eat more healthily, chowing down on more vegetables and fruit.
On April 9, Countdown received the largest volume of fresh fruit and vegetables ever into its produce distribution centres, says Kiri Hannifin, general manager of corporate affairs, safety and sustainability.
‘‘To put it into perspective, the volume was 20 per cent larger than Christmas.’’
It included 87,000 heads of broccoli; more than 80,000 kilos of bananas; more than 80,000 avocados and 65,000 bags of potatoes. Hannifin says products like berries, apples, pears, tomatoes and root vegetables also sold ‘‘incredibly well’’, and meat, fish and dairy products were also popular.
On the other hand, we still wanted treats. Nielsen data shows big increases during lockdown in indulgence categories like ambient desserts – that’s things like jellies, rice puddings and microwavable desserts – which went up by 57 per cent. Ice cream sales increased 29 per cent and snack foods were up 23 per cent.
What all this did for our health hasn’t been directly measured but experts can make some educated guesses. For example, what might it have meant to be forced to cook every single meal at home for five weeks?
Dietitian and head of the NZ Nutrition Foundation, Sarah Hanrahan, says eating every meal at home – and sitting down around the table to eat – in theory means we should have got a bit healthier.
‘‘Typically, more home cooking is aligned with better health behaviours. It normally correlates with eating more vegetables. It can be good for the mental health of teens from spending more time around the family table.’’
Hanrahan says that while more baking might have led to expanding waistlines, there might be an upside, too, if lockdown has given kids an interest in cooking.
‘‘Time spent in the kitchen is a very positive thing. And whether it’s baking or cooking rice, it doesn’t really matter – hopefully kids got to see the kitchen as an enjoyable place to be. Quite frankly, if a bit of cake got you through that’s not the worst thing in the world.’’
WE MOVED MORE
Researchers from Massey, Lincoln and Canterbury Universities asked people to participate in a global survey investigating the effect of Covid-19 restrictions on physical activity and wellbeing.
NZ lead researcher Dr Wendy O’Brien says initial results from the survey of 4000 show people were dog-walking and gardening regularly. Walking was a top activity among two thirds of respondents, up from 57 per cent pre-lockdown. Those who walked daily increased from 14 per cent to 21 per cent. And those who did online workouts shot up, from just 1 per cent to 27 per cent.
While most people said they didn’t change their habits much – those who’d been regular exercisers before, kept it up – those who reported exercising less also had lower wellbeing scores.
O’Brien’s team is researching further to see how exercise habits have changed since conditions have gone back towards normal. They hope to see regular exercise becoming a habit that sticks for some.
‘‘People always say they want to be more active and hopefully this gave them a chance to realise exercise doesn’t have to be a big deal. It doesn’t have to be structured. It doesn’t have to be expensive.
‘‘And people had long enough to feel the benefits, too. Not just the physical benefits, but clearing the mind and getting some fresh air. ’’
Something else that may stick is a change in our modes of transport. Bike Auckland asked Aucklanders to help it do a bike-count of its streets over lockdown and beyond. It showed massive shifts from cars to feet and pedal power during levels 4 and 3, with a strong correlation between less traffic and more walking and biking.
Auckland Transport data reports 14 per cent of Aucklanders are biking more often than they did pre-lockdown, and 75 per cent say they plan to keep up their fitness by walking or biking. Nationwide it’s a slightly different picture, with New Zealand Transport Agency data showing slight drops in cycling and walking for leisure and fitness in alert level 2.
WE CHANGED OUR DRINKING HABITS
When it came to booze in our bubbles, Kiwis changed their behaviour both ways . Te Hiringa Hauora, the Health Promotion Agency (HPA) was on the ball here, getting a survey up and running mid-lockdown to assess the impact of alert level 4 on Kiwis’ alcohol consumption.
On the positive side, a third of the 1190 respondents surveyed said they were drinking less during level 4 , with even stronger trends showing
‘Anxiety is a future-based emotion. Young people have a lot of future to worry about.’ MARY O’HAGAN, MENTAL WELLBEING MANAGER AT HPA
among Ma¯ ori (42 per cent), Pasifika (57 per cent) and young drinkers aged 18 to 24 (51 per cent).
This highlights how much our environment enables us to drink, according to HPA’s general manager for policy, research and advice, Cath Edmondson. When it’s easy to get, we tend to drink more.
‘‘The cost of alcohol and access to alcohol were major reasons why people drank less.’’
For one in five, though, drinking to relax, relieve stress or switch off led to more drinking than usual. This was most prevalent among 25 to 49-year-olds who also tended to be heavier drinkers.
With no bars or pubs available, how we drank also changed. The Covid Kai Survey found a quarter of people tried online e-drinks sessions with friends or family using Zoom, Facetime or other online platforms.
Some of us drank more often, especially the Boomers. Daily drinking became a habit for one-in-three drinkers aged 65 or older in the HPA survey, compared with a quarter prior to lockdown. Overall 19 per cent took up daily drinking, up from 11 per cent pre-lockdown.
And of note is that during lockdown, 16 per cent of those who’d had a drink started to worry about their drinking.
Edmondson says it’s not unusual to use alcohol as a coping mechanism. ‘‘Some people said to us it clicked with them that they were drinking more. This is a concern.’’
OUR MENTAL HEALTH WAS UP AND DOWN
Many of us experienced anxiety and stress during lockdown. This was reflected in the data from the HPA survey; it found close to half of respondents had felt ‘‘nervous, anxious or on edge’’. 38 per cent said they’d felt unable to control or stop themselves worrying, and 41 per cent said they’d felt down, depressed or hopeless.
These feelings were stronger for the young. Distress was highest among 18 to 24-year-olds at 60 per cent. This may well be linked to the fact that more than half of this group had also been affected negatively financially by lockdown. A Youthline survey of young people echoed this, with 59 per cent of respondents saying lockdown had had a negative impact on their lives.
Older people were the least anxious, with just 13 per cent of those aged 65 or older scoring high on the HPA’s distress scale.
‘‘Anxiety is a future-based emotion’’, says Mary O’Hagan, mental wellbeing manager at HPA. ‘‘Young people have a lot of future to worry about.’’
O’Hagan says young people were more
vulnerable to losing employment during lockdown, which would add to a general sense of anxiety they already had about the future.
‘‘Young people have a sense that their parents’ generation have done better than they’ll do, and I think there’s some evidence for that… they can’t afford houses, they’ve got student loans, and then I think if you throw this pandemic in which looked like a tsunami at the start, then you have a lot more uncertainty about people’s long-term prospects.’’ That said, the news wasn’t all bad.
‘‘Actually a lot of people did quite well under lockdown,’’ says O’Hagan.
‘‘I think people felt the decisive action the Government took really made them feel as though they were part of a collective project, and that they were being really well looked after by the Government; they were being protected. I think that really helped.
‘‘Obviously it was a real strain on some, but some people actually loved it’’.
WE SLEPT WORSE
Sleep researchers used the lockdown to look at how the situation affected our night’s kip.
Associate Professor Mirjam Munch, at Massey University’s Sleep/Wake Research Centre, led a study of Kiwis’ sleep and wake routines and how that affected mood.
Early results show almost half of the 700
respondents had worse sleep quality during lockdown. Perhaps unsurprisingly, close to half also said their mood was worse. This echoes data from around the world.
For some of us though, lockdown could have been a useful thing, with working from home reducing the ‘‘social jetlag’’ mismatch between our sleeping schedules on free days and work days.
‘‘This may be better enabled when you are staying at home and working from home, if you can decide upon the timing of your sleep-wake schedule, meaning you can choose when you go to bed and when you get up in the morning,’’ says Munch.
‘‘This is something that’s been shown to be beneficial for sleep duration but interestingly not for sleep quality in overseas Covid-19 surveys. Sleep quality may be influenced by feelings of worry and anxiety during the lockdown.’’
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN LONG TERM?
Researchers are generally reluctant to say what long-term changes will be apparent in the health of New Zealanders but there are hints some of our behaviour may change long term or even permanently.
Nielsen reports our shopping behaviour has gone back closer to normal, though we’re still tending to stockpile a little more. Data from May showed weekly supermarket sales returning to similar levels as when New Zealand had its first confirmed Covid-19 case.
Overseas research suggests people are likely to cocoon at home more than usual in the next few months, even as lockdown restrictions lift, with consumers saying they’re planning on staying home and eating at home more often.
In a Nielsen survey in China, 86 per cent of people said they would eat at home more often post-Covid than before. In Australia, an IRI report found 66 per cent of people said they intend to create more meals from scratch.
And while some other behaviour may drift back to normal over the next few months, the experts think it may take longer for our mood and mental health to improve.
‘‘I think it’s going to be very uneven across the community,’’ says O’Hagan.
‘‘I think it was during lockdown as well. I think some people loved it, and other people had a really bad time… I think it’ll continue to be very uneven. Of course the people who we think will be most affected by the economic fallout are probably young people.’’
‘‘There will be issues around continuing stress and anxiety,’’ says Edmondson. ‘‘Because it’s not over yet.’’
Niki Bezzant is a writer, speaker and journalist specialising in food and health. This work was made possible by the support of the Aotearoa New Zealand Science Journalism Fund.