Research
Energy balance
Increases in diet quality and physical activity are the most significant determinants of weight loss during periods of lifestyle disruption.
To lose weight during stressful times, focus on improving what you eat (diet quality) and moving more (physical activity). These are the two most powerful tools for managing weight when your routine is disrupted.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Structural equation modelling revealed that changes in physical activity and diet quality during the pandemic were the most relevant factors associated with weight change.
Why this rating
Large sample size and use of structural equation modeling to isolate factors.
Source
Impact of COVID-19 on health behaviours and body weight: A prospective observational study in a cohort of 1.1 million UK and US individuals
Mohsen Mazidii et al. · Research Square · 2021
DOI 10.21203/rs.3.rs-179013/v1
cohort · n=1100000Cited 14×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Individuals with unhealthy pre-pandemic lifestyle patterns (low diet quality, low physical activity) are more likely to improve their diet quality and lose weight during periods of high lifestyle disruption compared to those with healthy pre-pandemic patterns.Good
- Higher lifestyle disruption, measured by changes in diet quality, physical activity, sleep, snacking, and alcohol, is associated with greater bi-directional weight change (both loss and gain) compared to low disruption.Good
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