Meal and Sleep Timing before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Anonymous Survey Study from Sweden

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions, such as stay-at-home-orders, have significantly altered daily routines and lifestyles. Given their importance for metabolic health, we herein compared sleep and meal timing parameters during vs. before the COVID-19 pandemic based on subjective recall, in an anonymous Swedish survey. Among 191 adults (mean age: 47 years; 77.5% females), we show that social jetlag, i.e., the mismatch in sleep midpoint between work and free days, was reduced by about 17 min during the pandemic compared with the pre-pandemic state (p < 0.001). Concomitantly, respondents’ sleep midpoint was shifted toward morning hours during workdays (p < 0.001). A later daily eating midpoint accompanied the shift in sleep timing (p = 0.001). This effect was mainly driven by a later scheduled first meal (p < 0.001). No difference in the timing of the day’s last meal was found (p = 0.814). Although our survey was limited in terms of sample size and by being cross-sectional, our results suggest that the delay in sleep timing due to the COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by a corresponding shift in the timing of early but not late meals.

Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic-Induced Dietary and Lifestyle Changes and Their Associations with Perceived Health Status and Self-Reported Body Weight Changes in India: A Cross-Sectional Survey

“…Stay-at-home orders are an essential approach to mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic but are not without repercussions on people's daily activities, including work, sleep pattern, mealtime, education, social interactions, exercise, and other essential daily tasks, such as buying primary necessities [4,5,[24][25][26]. All these changes can, in turn, affect the physical and mental health and well-being of some people.…”

“…The implementation of measures, such as closing borders, home confinement, quarantine, and physical (social) distancing, are crucial for controlling pandemics such as COVID-19, which has posed a global public health emergency threat since early 2019. Despite their apparent benefits to safety and health related to pandemics, these measures can have a significant repercussion on health and well-being because they can drastically Nutrients 2021, 13, 3682 2 of 19 and suddenly alter lifestyle behaviors of people in confinement, such as diet, physical activity, smoking, mealtime, sleep pattern, and alcohol use [1][2][3][4][5].…”

“…Various studies [1,2,4,5,[8][9][10][11]14,18,19] have assessed the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on diet and lifestyle, but pandemic restrictions that are implemented to control the transmission of COVID-19 vary between countries, depending on the severity of the virus transmission. The impact of the restrictions on lifestyle behaviors and changes in health is anticipated to be different between populations, and thus, population-specific investigations are warranted.…”

Distinct Circadian Assessments From Wearable Data Reveal Social Distancing Promoted Internal Desynchrony Between Circadian Markers

“…Thus, CRHR estimates shifted significantly during the lockdown, since external cues, such as meals and social interaction, have a larger effect on peripheral clocks (31,(41)(42)(43). Previous work has also shown that alterations to sleep patterns occur during the pandemic (16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22). However, our CRHR algorithms do not consider data during sleep, and are not simply a reflection of changed sleep-wake patterns [See (6)].…”

“…The 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns were one of the largest global changes in human behavior. These lockdowns had measurable effects on the timing of sleep, meals, and other activities, which mainly shifted to later times of the day (16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22). Social pressures on the timing of daily activities greatly changed, with many businesses and schools operating remotely or closing.…”