Skip to content

Dietary Intake and Eating Habits During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Dietary Intake and Eating Habits During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Status
UNKNOWN
Phases
Unknown
Study type
Observational
Source
ClinicalTrials.gov
Registry ID
NCT04407533
Acronym
COVIDiet
Enrollment
2020
Registered
2020-05-29
Start date
2020-05-25
Completion date
2022-08-31
Last updated
2021-03-17

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

COVID-19

Keywords

nutrition, dietary intake, eating habits, lifestyle behaviours, physical activity, sleep, artificial intelligence, mobile application

Brief summary

The COVID-19 pandemic affects eating habits, diet quality and physical activity differently among individuals; it is unclear how these behaviours will evolve as the pandemic continues. In this observational study, dietary intake will be frequently collected using an artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced mobile application combined with real-time analysis, and lifestyle behaviours from online questionnaires, to provide timely, relevant data for public health decision making.

Detailed description

A thousand nine hundred and twenty adult men and women aged 18 years and older, living in the community and owning a smartphone or tablet, will be recruited all over Canada. Rapid recruitment will be achieved using social media and professional networks. All data will be collected online to allow a broad reach even in remote regions. Self-reported eating habits, physical activity, sleep, alcohol consumption, anxiety and depression data will be collected using validated questionnaires on an online survey platform, and dietary intake data using the mobile application Keenoa. With the application, participants take pictures of their meals, which are analyzed and accessible to researchers in real-time, providing comprehensive data on nutrient and food intake, and hence patterns and diet quality. Diet will be tracked for a full week at study entrance and repeated 6 times during a year, and once one year later, along with follow-up questionnaires on lifestyle behaviours. The main study objectives are 1) to evaluate how eating habits, diet quality and related lifestyle behaviours of Canadian adults are impacted by confinement phases of the pandemic over one year; and 2) determine the association between eating behaviours and diet quality with contextual socio-demographic, education, emotional and health factors, and identify emerging explanatory factors as clusters.

Interventions

OTHERDiet tracking and survey

Mobile AI-based food diary application and online questionnaires

Sponsors

McGill University
Lead SponsorOTHER

Study design

Observational model
ECOLOGIC_OR_COMMUNITY
Time perspective
PROSPECTIVE

Eligibility

Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes

Inclusion criteria

* Men and women aged 18 years and over, living in Canada * Owning a smartphone and having access to internet * Able to read and understand English or French

Exclusion criteria

* Any active and uncontrolled acute disease that interferes with usual food intake * Being hospitalized * Pregnancy or lactation

Design outcomes

Primary

MeasureTime frameDescription
Dietary intakeTwo yearsEnergy, macronutrients, micronutrients, and food intake assessed with the Keenoa mobile application

Secondary

MeasureTime frameDescription
Diet qualityTwo yearsCalculated from food group intake as per the Canadian Healthy Eating Index
Eating habitsTwo yearsEating behaviors, food access and cooking skills collected from online questionnaire

Countries

Canada

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 10, 2026