Nutritional and Lifestyle Habits Amongst Adults in Urban Harare, Zimbabwe During the Covid-19 Lockdown

Abstract

The rapid spread of the disease led to Covid-19 being declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation, WHO. This resulted in nations effecting containment measures that included lockdowns to contain the spread. COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive impact on human health causing sudden lifestyle changes, through social distancing and isolation at home. The aim of the study was to assess the impact of COVID-19 confinement measures on health behaviors such as eating habits, physical activity, sedentarism, alcohol consumption and tobacco use, and the change in body weight among adults in Harare. Further, the association of these behaviors with the risk and development of non-communicable diseases. An analytical cross-sectional study, looking at 144 participants aged at least 40 years resident in three residential areas in Harare since the first lockdown of 30 March 2020 was performed. An interview-based questionnaire collected data on demographic, lifestyle factors and nutritional habits as well as reported noncommunicable diseases. We reported prevalence of different demographic and lifestyle factors, change in nutritional habits and reported incidence of NCDs making comparisons by sex using the Chi-square for categorical variables and Student ttest/ Mann Whitney U test for normal and skewed data respectively. All comparisons reported a p-value<0.05 if there were significant differences. Logistic regression was performed to determine the magnitude of the measure of association between study factors and NCDs. The majority of the enrolled participants were females (71.5%) and most had attained ordinary level education. Almost half (45.7%) of the participants perceived that the gained weight with an overall reported increase in junk food items (sugary drinks and snacks/sweets). Participants reported an increase in the amount of alcohol consumed, whilst 56.3% indicated having more than three meals per day. Eighty percent of the participants reported working from home during the pandemic and less than a quarter (22.2%) performed any moderate physical activity. Hypertension was the most reported NCD (38.2%), whilst 67/144 had at least one NCD with more females reporting them. Access to healthcare was minimal, while the highest reported incidence was for hypertension. Alcohol use [OR=1.65, 95% CI: 0.92-2.17], perceived weight gain [OR=2.12, 95% CI: 1.72-3.12] and lack of access to drugs and medication [OR=2.22, 95% CI: [1.43, 3.11]. In summary, we have identified that covid-19 lockdowns resulted in change in lifestyle factors and nutritional habits that could have led to the occurrence of new NCDs due to the lockdown travel restrictions. We have also shown that lack of easily accessible health services, drugs and medications had a negative impact in both old and new NCD cases. The researcher recommends awareness on healthy eating and physical activity and introduction of e-health and telemedicine.