Suchergebnisse

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has altered people's lives around the world. Here we document population-wide shifts in dietary interests in 18 countries in 2020, as revealed through time series of Google search volumes. We find that during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic there was an overall surge in food interest, larger and longer-lasting than the surge during typical end-of-year holidays in Western countries. The shock of decreased mobility manifested as a drastic increase in interest in consuming food at home and a corresponding decrease in consuming food outside of home. The largest (up to threefold) increases occurred for calorie-dense carbohydrate-based foods such as pastries, bakery products, bread, and pies. The observed shifts in dietary interests have the potential to globally affect food consumption and health outcomes. These findings can inform governmental and organizational decisions regarding measures to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on diet and nutrition.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has altered people's lives around the world. Here we document population-wide shifts in dietary interests in 18 countries in 2020, as revealed through time series of Google search volumes. We find that during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic there was an overall surge in food interest, larger and longer-lasting than the surge during typical end-of-year holidays in Western countries. The shock of decreased mobility manifested as a drastic increase in interest in consuming food at home and a corresponding decrease in consuming food outside of home. The largest (up to threefold) increases occurred for calorie-dense carbohydrate-based foods such as pastries, bakery products, bread, and pies. The observed shifts in dietary interests have the potential to globally affect food consumption and health outcomes. These findings can inform governmental and organizational decisions regarding measures to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on diet and nutrition.

Abstract
Social influence is a strong determinant of food consumption, which in turn influences the environment and health. Purchasing mimicry, a phenomenon where a person copies another person's purchases, has been identified as the key governing mechanism. Although consistent observations have been made on the role of purchasing mimicry in driving similarities in food consumption, much less is known about the precise prevalence, the affected subpopulations, and the food types most strongly associated with mimicry effects. Here, we study social influence on food choice through carefully designed causal analyses, leveraging the sequential nature of shop queues on a large university campus. In particular, we consider a large number of adjacent purchases where a focal user immediately follows another user ("partner") in the checkout queue and both make a purchase. Across food additions purchased during lunchtime together with a meal, we find that the focal user is significantly more likely to purchase the food item when the partner buys the item, vs. when the partner does not, increasing the purchasing probability by 14% in absolute terms, or by 83% in relative terms. The effect is observed across all food types, but largest for condiments. Furthermore, purchasing mimicry is present across age, gender, and status subpopulations, but strongest for students and the youngest. We elucidate the behavioral mechanism of purchasing mimicry, and derive direct implications for interventions improving dietary behaviors on campus, such as facilitating preordering to reduce detrimental interactions.