Study of Google searches during pandemic finds increased interest in high calorie foods

A brand new world research by researchers from EPFL, the College of Fribourg, and Microsoft Analysis has discovered there was an general surge in excessive calorie meals equivalent to pastries, bread and pies through the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, with potential implications for public well being.

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered folks’s lives around the globe. By mid-Could 2020, 2.5 billion folks or greater than one-third of the worldwide inhabitants, had been requested or ordered to remain at residence by their governments to forestall the unfold of the lethal virus.

New joint analysis printed right now within the journal Nature Communications, led by the Information Science Laboratory in EPFL’s Faculty of Laptop and Communication Sciences, along with collaborators from Microsoft Analysis and the College of Fribourg, exhibits us simply what we have been doing throughout COVID-19’s first wave after we have been confined in our homes—dreaming about, and sure consuming, excessive calorie consolation meals.

As diets have been suspected to have grow to be much less balanced through the first COVID-19 lockdowns, with doubtlessly vital ramifications for public well being, the researchers leveraged passively collected large-scale digital hint knowledge to research modifications in food-related pursuits throughout eighteen nations.

Particularly, they captured the recognition of Google search queries associated to virtually 1,500 meals (e.g., bread, pizza, pies) in addition to methods of accessing meals (e.g., restaurant, recipe) obtained in an aggregated kind through the Google Tendencies device, to research modifications in food-related pursuits.

“We noticed that as our mobility was drastically decreased and we began to spend extra time at residence, there was an general surge in curiosity in meals and we might see that this surge was extra drastic and lasted longer than, for instance, what normally occurs round Christmas and Thanksgiving. We additionally discovered that these will increase have been most drastic for carbohydrate-based meals like pastries, pies, common breads and banana bread—the king of the pandemic,” stated EPFL’s Kristina Gligorić, Ph.D. scholar within the Faculty of Laptop and Communication Sciences and lead creator of the research.

Google Tendencies search volumes have been proven to be a robust population-scale sensor for various human behaviors, together with unemployment, buying and selling selections and voting, so this analysis provides to a wealthy literature that, effectively earlier than COVID-19, had begun to research well being and diet behaviors utilizing digital hint knowledge.

The researchers tracked knowledge all through 2020 and found an attention-grabbing distinction between the primary and second waves of COVID-19, “We noticed that within the second wave the affect on dietary curiosity was lots smaller though mobility restrictions have been very strict in December 2020. We are able to speculate that folks already had recipes so did not should seek for them once more or it could possibly be that the primary wave of the pandemic was such a shock that when the second wave arrived it was already one thing acquainted,” Gligorić continued.

The researchers consider {that a} main good thing about utilizing digital knowledge on this approach was the power to generate a direct and detailed image about what was occurring around the globe in a time of disaster however warning that it’s a proxy for actual behaviors—looking for meals or a recipe would not essentially imply the meals was consumed.

That is why Gligorić believes there may be ample room for observe up research, “I feel it is actually vital in future research to attach again these varieties of information with eventual scientific outcomes associated to diets and most notably weight problems and diabetes. One other avenue for additional analysis could be to attempt to establish the affect of COVID-19 associated measures on people versus total populations, which might have rapid implications for monitoring and enhancing dietary habits.”

Lastly, the authors hope the analysis will assist policymakers sooner or later, provided that lockdown selections can have an effect on so many individuals, “This extends past COVID-19 and the present disaster to other forms of situations the place folks is likely to be instructed to spend extra time at residence, on account of different new viruses and ailments or occasions associated to climate. The measures which might be carried out have an effect on the mobility of populations and are prone to have implications for diets and long run public well being outcomes,” concludes Gligorić.

The paper, “Inhabitants-scale dietary pursuits through the COVID-19 pandemic,” was printed right now within the journal Nature Communications.