The Language of Food during the Pandemic: Hints about the Dietary Effects of Covid-19
This study reveals concerning dietary and mental health trends during the pandemic lockdown, which could inform public health interventions for similar crises.
The researchers analyzed over 770,000 tweets during the COVID-19 lockdown in the United States (March 15-May 15, 2020) and found a notable shift from mentions of healthy to unhealthy foods, along with increased associations between depression hashtags and unhealthy foods, tobacco, and alcohol.
We study the language of food on Twitter during the pandemic lockdown in the United States, focusing on the two month period of March 15 to May 15, 2020. Specifically, we analyze over770,000 tweets published during the lockdown and the equivalent period in the five previous years and highlight several worrying trends. First, we observe that during the lockdown there was a notable shift from mentions of healthy foods to unhealthy foods. Second, we show an increased pointwise mutual information of depression hashtags with food-related tweets posted during the lockdown and an increased association between depression hashtags and unhealthy foods, tobacco, and alcohol during the lockdown.