By The UK’s view on lockdown habits
According to a recent YouGov / Your.MD survey regarding the UK’s view on lockdown habits, 81% of people reported an increase in harmful habits during lockdown.
These include smoking, drinking, and poor diet.
Only two-thirds of the public say that they plan to give up these unhealthy lockdown habits, leading to the question of whether Britain will emerge as an unhealthier nation from lockdown?
According to behavioural economist Denise Hampson who collated the survey data, Britain is set to emerge unhealthier from lockdown, with four out of five people reporting an increase in harmful habits, including smoking, poor diet and staying up late.
She added that the sudden disruption to our old way of life has shaken our routines and habits, with the ambiguity of life in lockdown leading us to replace them with new ones that we find comforting.
The survey found that detrimental habits have emerged during the course of lockdown.
A combination of the habits identified might, over time, lead to long-term implications for individual health, earning lockdown itself another place in the list of risks to our health.
Almost a fifth of people claim to have started drinking more than 14 units of alcohol a week (approx. two bottles of wine) during lockdown, and 9% have taken up smoking.
This is more common in 35-44-year-olds (20% and 13% respectively).
A third (33%) of the public say their eating habits are less healthy now than before lockdown began.
However, 45% of people surveyed reported that they have been prioritising their mental health, by adopting new positive habits.
Denise Hampson added:
“We are also facing an extreme period of collective anxiety. Nothing we used to do can be taken for granted anymore and we are less clear on what the future holds.
“This leads to soothing behaviour, to make us feel better, so it’s no surprise we are drinking more alcohol, consuming more social media, smoking and snacking unhealthily.
“Lockdown happened very fast, so all our old routines were fractured and disrupted all at once.
“It’s easy to think we’ll just snap back to the way we used to be, but getting out of lockdown is likely to be a much slower process, so we’ll be more likely to carry these new habits with us for some time, and they’ll take a bit of effort to shake off.”
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