Lockdowns Made Us Eat Worse and Move Less Worldwide

The Quiet Collapse of Daily Life

In April 2020, as the world locked itself indoors, a group of researchers led by Achraf Ammar at the University of Sfax in Tunisia did something unusual. Instead of waiting for the pandemic to end to study its effects, they launched a survey in seven languages, asking people across Europe, North Africa, Western Asia, and the Americas to describe their lives before and during home confinement. They wanted to know: what happens to human bodies when you take away the commute, the gym, the social meals, the daily walk to the bus stop?

The answer, published in Nutrients, is not subtle. Within weeks, physical activity at all intensities collapsed. Vigorous exercise, moderate movement, even walking all dropped. Sitting time jumped from 5 hours a day to 8 (Ammar et al., 2020). People ate worse. They snacked more. They lost control of their eating patterns. The only change in a positive direction was a drop in binge drinking of alcohol.

The paper, now cited over 2,000 times, is a snapshot of a global experiment nobody signed up for. It tells us something uncomfortable about how fragile our healthy habits really are.

What Actually Happened to Our Bodies

The ECLB COVID19 survey collected 1,047 responses, 54 percent from women, spread across Asia (36 percent), Africa (40 percent), Europe (21 percent), and other regions (3 percent). The researchers asked people to report their behavior before confinement and during it. This before and after design is simple but powerful. It avoids the problem of asking people to remember how they used to live years ago. They were reporting on their own recent past.

The results were consistent across every measure.

Physical Activity: The Floor Fell Out

The authors found that all four categories of physical activity they measured declined. Vigorous activity, the kind that gets your heart pounding, dropped significantly. Moderate activity, like a brisk walk or light cycling, declined too. Even walking, the most basic form of human movement, decreased. And overall physical activity, the sum of everything, went down.

But the most striking number is the change in sitting time. Before confinement, people reported sitting about 5 hours per day. During confinement, that number rose to 8 hours per day (Ammar et al., 2020). That is a 60 percent increase in sedentary time. For context, studies of office workers show that every additional hour of sitting per day is associated with increased risks of cardiovascular disease and metabolic problems. A jump of three hours, sustained over weeks or months, is not a minor inconvenience. It is a physiological shift.

Eating: The Comfort Food Trap

The survey asked about food consumption and meal patterns. The authors found that people reported eating more unhealthy foods during confinement. They also reported eating out of control more often, snacking more between meals, and changing the number of main meals they ate per day (Ammar et al., 2020). The direction of change was clear: toward more calories, less structure, and less nutritional quality.

The only exception was alcohol. Binge drinking decreased significantly (Ammar et al., 2020). This is interesting. It suggests that social context matters for heavy drinking. When bars and parties disappeared, so did some of the triggers for binge consumption. But the overall eating pattern still worsened.

Why This Matters More Than You Think

You might read this and think: "Of course people sat more and ate worse during a lockdown. What did you expect?" That reaction is understandable, but it misses the point.

The Ammar et al. study is not just a confirmation of the obvious. It is a measurement of the magnitude of the shift. And that magnitude matters for public health policy. If lockdowns cause a 60 percent increase in sitting time and a measurable decline in diet quality, then the health costs of future lockdowns must be weighed against the benefits of infection control. This is not an argument against lockdowns. It is an argument for being honest about their side effects.

Consider the implications for chronic disease. The World Health Organization estimates that physical inactivity is responsible for 3.2 million deaths per year globally. If a few months of confinement shift an entire population's activity levels downward, the long term consequences could ripple for years. People who stop exercising for a few weeks may not restart easily. Habits that took years to build can dissolve in days.

The same logic applies to eating. The authors found that people ate more snacks and lost control of their meal patterns (Ammar et al., 2020). Once those patterns are disrupted, they do not automatically reset when restrictions lift. The lockdown may have ended, but the eating habits it created may persist.

How the Study Was Done

The methodology is worth understanding because it shapes how much trust to put in the findings.

The researchers designed an electronic survey called the "Effects of home Confinement on multiple Lifestyle Behaviours during the COVID19 outbreak" survey. They recruited 35 research organizations from Europe, North Africa, Western Asia, and the Americas to promote it. The survey was available in English, German, French, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, and Slovenian. This multilingual approach was crucial for getting a diverse sample.

The questions were presented in a differential format. For each behavior, people were asked to report their status "before" and "during" confinement. This reduces recall bias because people are comparing two recent time periods, not trying to remember distant habits.

The sample was not perfectly representative. It was a convenience sample, meaning people who saw the survey and chose to respond. The authors note that responses came from Asia (36 percent), Africa (40 percent), Europe (21 percent), and other regions (3 percent). There is an overrepresentation of certain regions and an underrepresentation of others. But the consistency of the findings across regions suggests the pattern is real.

What the Study Does Not Prove

Every study has limits. The Ammar et al. paper is no exception.

First, the data is self reported. People may overestimate or underestimate their physical activity and food intake. The direction of bias is hard to predict. People might want to report that they exercised more than they did, or they might want to report that they were more virtuous before the lockdown. The before and after design helps, but it does not eliminate the problem.

Second, the sample size of 1,047 is moderate. It is large enough to detect meaningful effects, but not large enough to make fine grained comparisons between subgroups. The authors acknowledge this and call for larger studies to look at differences by age, country, and other factors.

Third, the study captures a moment in time. It does not tell us how long these changes lasted. Did people bounce back after lockdowns ended? Or did the habits persist? The paper does not answer that question. It is a photograph, not a movie.

Fourth, the study cannot prove causation. It shows that during confinement, behaviors changed. But it does not prove that confinement caused the changes. Other factors were at play: stress, fear, economic disruption, changes in work schedules. The authors are careful to describe their findings as associations, not causal effects.

What This Actually Means

The Ammar et al. study is a warning, not a verdict. Here is what it tells us directly:

• ▸Sitting time jumped 60 percent. From 5 to 8 hours per day. That is the equivalent of adding a full workday of sitting every week. For people who already sit for work, the total may be higher. Interventions to break up sitting time, like standing breaks or walking meetings, are not optional. They are essential during any period of home confinement.

• ▸All forms of physical activity declined. Not just gym workouts, but walking and moderate movement. This means that promoting exercise is not enough. People need reasons to move at all. Walking is the most accessible form of physical activity, and it was the most disrupted. Public health messaging should focus on preserving baseline movement, not just high intensity exercise.

• ▸Eating patterns became less healthy and less structured. People ate more snacks, lost control of their eating, and changed their main meal patterns. This suggests that structure matters for diet quality. When daily routines collapse, eating patterns drift. Interventions that help people maintain meal timing and portion control may be more effective than general nutritional advice.

• ▸Binge drinking decreased. This is the one bright spot. It suggests that social context is a major driver of heavy alcohol consumption. If policy makers want to reduce binge drinking, they might look at the conditions that made it drop during lockdowns and consider whether some of those conditions can be replicated without full confinement.

• ▸The effects were global. The survey covered multiple continents and languages, and the pattern held. This is not a problem limited to one country or culture. It is a human response to confinement. Any future pandemic response that involves home confinement must include parallel plans to support physical activity and healthy eating.

The Ammar et al. paper is a reminder that human health is not just about avoiding one disease. It is about maintaining the fragile web of habits that keep us functioning. When you disrupt that web, you pay a price. The question is not whether lockdowns were necessary. It is whether we are willing to count the full cost.