Question

1. Provide a description of the nutritional challenges you have seen over the past months due to COVID-19. Think in terms of grocery shopping, changes in meal habits, mealtimes, meal offerings, unavailable foods, etc. What about those of you that have children at home? Are you preparing meals to take to school or meals for lunch at home? What is the health of your community? How is your health?

Answer 1

Maintaining an adequate nutritional status is important , especially in covid pandemic period when the immune system get ready to combat infection .

The COVID-19 pandemic caused massive impact on human health, causing sudden lifestyle changes, significantly in eating patterns.  Due to the restriction in grocery shopping due to fear of non availability of certain food items there is mass piling of grocery at home. Canned and frozen items may be harder to access due to consumer stockpiling, causing temporary shortages.

Limited access to daily grocery shopping may lead to reduce the consumption of fresh foods, especially fruit, vegetables and fish, in favour of highly processed ones, such as convenience foods, junk foods, snacks, and ready-to-eat cereals, which tend to be high in fats, sugars, and salt.

There is storage of frozen items among people in community. Vegetable such as broccoli, asparagus, green beans, carrots, and Brussels sprouts are frozen. Poultry, Breads and muffins frozen well can be used for months together.

Staying at home and limitation of outdoors and in-gym physical activity lead to weight gain among individuals. In addition, the interruption of the work routine caused by the quarantine could result in boredom and absence of junk food from restaurants, is associated with a greater food intake. In addition hearing continuously about the COVID-19 from media can be stressful. Stress also leads to overeating or it is called emotional eating . This causes obesity and increased risk of getting cardiovascular complications.

Change in food pattern among children

• healthy home made healthy foods compared to junk foods

• the consumption of homemade desserts, bread and pizza has increased. On the other hand, the consumption of savory snacks, snacks, processed meat, carbonated and sugary drinks has decreased.

• since at home kids are having regular meal time
• demand for favorite food increased so meal offering also changed.
• due to concern about food handling and contamination home made lunch packs are preferred
• micronutrient supplementations (e.g. vitamins, minerals, probiotics) may be beneficial especially for vulnerable populations such as children and elderly .

The situation is different  in low-income and middle-income countries. There is an expected increase in child malnutrition, including wasting, due to steep declines in household incomes, changes in the availability and affordability of nutritious food. Parents lose job and financial crisis add to many problems. Increased isk of mortality from infectious disease is rising at fast pace.

Eating a healthy diet, being physically active, managing stress, and getting enough sleep are critical to keeping our immune system strong.