How COVID-19 Changed The Way Lake County Families Eat

LAKE COUNTY, IL — The coronavirus pandemic has altered the lives of Crystal Lake and Cary families in numerous, lasting ways. Many parents had to deal with layoffs and lack of income while kids adjusted to attending school from their dining room tables.

In between all that, the pandemic has also changed our eating habits — and not necessarily for the better, a new poll reports.

While many parents say their families have eaten healthier since the start of the pandemic, nearly 1 in 5 report their children have eaten fast food more often, according to C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.

“The pandemic disrupted many family routines, including where and what they eat,” Gary Freed, M.D., poll co-director and Mott pediatrician, said in a news release. “We know family lifestyles can impact children’s diets, and we looked to see how.”

To conduct the poll, Mott surveyed more than 2,000 parents nationwide with children ages 3-18. It comes on the heels of a separate University of Michigan report that found American children gained excess weight during the pandemic.

The poll found that 1 in 6 parents say their child ate fast food at least twice a week. Parents also identified barriers to making home-cooked meals — about 40 percent reported being too busy to cook and 1 in 5 said they were too stressed.

While 85 percent of families said they know fast food is unhealthy for their kids, 33 percent called it a “good value for the money” and 24 percent believe fast food is cheaper than cooking at home.

For some experts, that might not be a surprising revelation.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, billions of people worldwide who experienced food insecurity could not afford the cheapest options for a healthy diet, according to the World Economic Forum. This sometimes forces those with the lowest incomes to consume the worst-quality diets.

Many people struggling with food insecurity can be found right here in Lake County, according to Feeding America, the nation’s largest network of food pantries and food banks.

Before the pandemic, 7 percent of people in Lake County were considered to be food insecure, according to Feeding America. The continuing economic fallout from the pandemic has increased that number to 8.3 percent of people who are on the brink of hunger.

The Mott poll found that fast-food consumption was connected with a parent’s perception of their child’s weight.

Parents who said their kids are overweight were almost twice as likely to say their children have had fast food at least twice a week, compared to those who said their kids are at a normal weight, according to the poll.

Parents also tend not to dictate their kids’ food choices at fast-food restaurants. About 88 percent allow their child to choose what they eat, and only 1 in 3 parents read the nutritional information.

Sixty-seven percent of parents, however, say they encourage their child to choose healthier options and try to limit unhealthy items such as fries and milkshakes.

“Parents mostly acknowledge that fast food isn’t an ideal choice but see it as an acceptable ‘sometimes food,’” Freed said.

On the other end of the spectrum, the pandemic may have been linked to a healthier lifestyle for some families. Nearly half of parents who responded to the poll said their kids had home-cooked meals more often since the pandemic prompted shutdowns in March 2020.

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