MY LOCKDOWN, MY PLATE, MY HEART - HOW THE LOCKDOWN PROMOTED UNHEALTHY DIETARY HABITS

Lockdown has affected our lives in unimaginable ways. Who thought that suddenly, we will have to be isolated in our homes, travelling would become a far fetched dream, meeting your friends or family would bring danger, the big fat Indian weddings would turn into zoom and Skype meetings, formal wears would be replaced by lower and T shirts and most importantly our daily lifestyle would change drastically.

I think most of our first reaction to lockdown was “lets collect grocery as soon as possible”. And then, began the series of Master Chef on social media. For different people, lockdown brought different changes.

1.       The singles who got stuck because of their jobs and didn’t know cooking

Well, I consider this class as the unluckiest people. Even if they stocked up grocery, they didn’t know what to do with that. So, over a series of video calls with their mothers and YouTube videos, they learnt basic cooking during initial days of lockdown. Some of them were smart enough to store canned food. Although they somehow learnt cooking, but the nutritional value of food went down, because, obviously they couldn’t cook proper balanced meal for themselves

2.       The singles who got stuck but knew cooking

These were a bit luckier than the last ones. They have skills but they lacked time. The tedious “work from home” schedule didn’t give them enough time to cook a nutritious meal for themselves. Some people in this category relied on frozen food as well. Also, the late-night working hours inculcated habit of midnight snacking in them.

3.       Those who managed to reach home and were with family

These are the luckiest set of people, because they got delicious food throughout the lockdown. But what went wrong here was that from the ideal 3 times a day meal, the schedule changed to many times a day meal. The pampering mothers would make the delicacies throughout the day resulting in some major changes in physique.

Now, what is the common trait in all the above categories? Yeah, I think you guessed it right “lack of a balanced meal”. Through years, we have read the importance of a balanced diet. Now, poor eating habits that many of us, adapted during lockdown and lack of exercise has definitely taken toll over our health.

Another factor that has been affecting diet for a long time but during lockdown its effect somehow increased is “Stress” due to increased screen time. For students who are attending online classes, the increased screen time is not only affecting their vision but their diet as well. For job professionals, working from home has increased their screen time. Social distancing is also one of the reasons for increased screen time. Now, you may be wondering, how? Well man is a social animal, we need to connect with people to maintain the social equilibrium, and this pandemic has disturbed that. Now, people are connecting with their loved ones through digital means. Since they are not able to go out for refreshment they are resorting to online series and gaming. And all of this together leads to this catastrophic chain :

increased screen time➡️increased stress➡️stress eating habits ➡️obesity

So, this is how lockdown has majorly affected our dietary habits which may have long term consequences on our heart as well, since all of it results in increased blood pressure, increased triglyceride and cholesterol levels, hyperglycemia etc. which are predisposing factors for many heart diseases.

Now, these all are the negative sides, if you look on the brighter side, this lockdown has given us time for some retrospection as well. There are many people who have tried to acquire healthy lifestyle as well. Some tried to maintain healthy diet which aids to their immunity, some started home gym to maintain their physique while some opted yoga for their mental health. At the end it’s all up to us that how we balance our lifestyle during these times and keep ourselves healthy.

Dr. Aakanksha Verma