The COVID-19 situation has adversely affected the physical as well as mental health of the world. People have started cultivating unhealthy habits like unorganized sleep schedules, excessive consumption of junk food, and evading physical exercises. Additionally, a global survey has confirmed that due to self-quarantine, people’s anxiety has worsened.

How Coronavirus caused a massive change in people’s everyday routines

Before WHO announced the onset of the pandemic, everything was going on by the book. A school student spent 8 hours at school, an employee had a 9-5 job, and almost everyone’s life was somehow packed with responsibilities.

But when the unexpected disease threatened people, everyone had to force shut their regular lives and stay locked in. Due to the immense pressure and fear, people started to feed their anxious thoughts with unhealthy foods.

A global study has proven that people who used to sleep at night ended sleeping all day long, and junk food became a regular meal. People who were already obese faced excess pressure as their health behaviors, especially their diets, got manipulated due to anxiousness. Though everyone started to cook and eat at home, it didn’t make much of a difference because junk foods became a boon for laziness.

Do you know exactly what junk food does to your body?

Emily Flanagan from Pennington Biomedical Research Center expressed her main concern over obese individuals who were prone to a severe impact from junk consumption.

According to her, junk foods have a lot of side effects that affect the immune system. Throughout the first wave of the pandemic, since people were only allowed to go to grocery stores on particular days, they stacked up more junk since such food is comparatively cheaper and is usually available in large quantities. The fear of the disease and the uncertainty about everyday life made people binge eat and stop physical activities. 

Read – The effects of fast food on the body.

Flanagan further stressed how pre-existing anxiety levels increase rapidly due to unhealthy behaviors. Pennington Biomedical Research Center researchers have also confirmed that, as per a study conducted on 8000 adults from 50 different American countries, a decline in healthy activities has been common ever since Coronavirus became rampant.

Read – Mental illness and obesity

Unhealthy eating is definitely not the way ahead!

All the findings regarding people’s unhealthy behaviors met at one reason – disruption in normal life. The regular routine being broken by the epidemic forced people to isolate and lose track of time. As the medical scientists have been putting their heart into creating a medicine, sources say that it’s almost time to get back to a normal life, a healthy diet and a regular workout.

If you’ve been struggling with stress-eating, remember that it’s common, and now is the time to change.