Situation Report: Changes to shopping and eating behaviours in Scotland during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020

Summary

This update to the Situation Report highlights the ongoing challenges to improve the Scottish diet, with particular focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Scotland’s food environment and consumer behaviours. 

The report shows that there continues to be a lack of progress towards the Scottish dietary goals, and that some unfavourable dietary behaviours have intensified, including increased snacking behaviours, purchase of discretionary foods and the considerable growth in takeaways. 

Increasing evidence of the negative impact that obesity has on COVID-19 outcomes has further strengthened the need for wide reaching and multifaceted ways to improve dietary health, and reduce health inequalities in Scotland. 

This report builds upon our existing evidence on food and drink purchase and consumption patterns. Future monitoring is required  to determine the wider impacts on overall food and drink purchasing patterns since the COVID-19 pandemic began.  

This report is designed for use by policy makers, educators, stakeholders including the food industry, health professionals and consumers.  It is an update to a previous version of this report published in 2020.