Changes in the food and drink consumption patterns of Australian women during the COVID-19 pandemic

OBJECTIVE

This paper uses data from the seventh fortnightly Coronavirus (COVID-19) Survey sent to women in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health to investigate the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and the food and drink consumption of women born in 1946-51, 1973-78 and 1989-95.

METHODS

A survey about changes in fruit, vegetable, discretionary food, takeaway and sugary drink consumption during the pandemic was emailed on 22 July 2020 to 28,709 women in three cohorts of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. Thematic qualitative analysis was conducted on comments about changes in consumption, and basic quantitative analysis was included for context.

RESULTS

There were significant associations between age and all categories of food and drink consumption. Women wrote of lifestyle changes and choices during lockdowns, comfort and emotional eating, and access to food and drink changing their consumption behaviours.

CONCLUSIONS

The COVID-19 pandemic and interventions had both positive and negative impacts on the food and drink consumption behaviours of Australian women.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC HEALTH

These findings can be used to directly influence practice around healthy food and drink consumption, highlighting enablers, including being at home, and barriers, including mental health, that should be considered.

Incipient erosion of biostabilized sediments examined using particle-field optical holography

Laser holography allows images of three-dimensional space at ultra-high resolution to be recorded onto photographic plates. Recorded scenes can be "replayed" with a second laser beam into free space and optically "interrogated" using either a microscope or a camera by sequentially focusing on increasing distances from the hologram in the field of view (optical sectioning). From these sections, information on the relative locations and orientation in space of suspended particles as well as the morphology of particles can be obtained. This paper examines the utility of "in-line" laser holography to discriminate the size and the morphology of sand particles eroded under turbulent shear flow during benthic sediment transport. The influence of a commercially available adhesive polymer (xanthan gum, derived from the bacterium Xanthomonas campestris) on sediment stability and resuspended particle morphology is described. The major implications for carbon and sediment cycling within estuaries are highlighted.