Gender, economic stressors, and altered food intake during the COVID-19 pandemic: findings from four waves of a nationally representative cross-sectional survey

Objective To examine gender-specific associations of four economic stressors and self-reported changes in food intake during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design Four rounds of a nationally representative cross-sectional survey (n = 9207) in Canada (May 2020 to December 2021). Stratified multilevel logistic regression models conditioned on provincial and individual confounders to examine main and independent associations between stress over financial concerns, having enough food, accessing benefits, or losing one’s job and self-reported eating more or less than usual. Results Overall, 36.4% of respondents increased or decreased their usual food intake since the pandemic. Stress over financial concerns was independently associated with higher odds of eating more among women (OR 1.63 [CI95: 1.33, 2.01]) and men (1.66 [1.32, 2.08]), and also eating less among women (1.64 [1.14, 2.36]) and men (1.76 [1.21, 2.56]). Stress over having enough food was independently associated with higher odds of eating less among women (1.59 [1.11, 2.28]) and men (1.82 [1.21, 2.75]). Stress over losing one’s job was independently associated with higher odds of both eating more and eating less among men only (1.49 [1.17, 1.89] and 1.61 [1.11, 2.34], respectively). Conclusion Four types of economic stressors affected self-reported altered food intake in both genders, with stronger associations in men, and the job-loss stressor was only associated with men’s reported food intake.