Impact of COVID-19 confinement on eating behaviours across 16 European countries: The COVIDiet cross-national study Molina-Montes, Esther Uzhova, Irina Verardo, Vito Artacho, Reyes García-Villanova, Belén Guerra-Hernández, Eduardo Kapsokefalou, Maria Vlassopoulos, Antonis Katidi, Alexandra Koroušić Seljak, Barbara Modic, Robert Malisova, Olga Eftimov, Tome Hren, Irena Valenčič, Eva Šatalić, Zvonimir Panjkota Krbavčić, Ines Vranešić Bender, Darija Giacalone, Davide Bom Frøst, Michael Konic Ristic, Aleksandra Milesevic, Jelena Nikolic, Marina Kolay, Ezgi Güney, Merve Kriaucioniene, Vilma Czlapka-Matyasik, Magdalena Bykowska-Derda, Aleksandra Kujundzic, Enisa Talji, Irzada Brka, Muhamed Spiroski, Igor Cunha Velho, Sergio Sousa Pinto, Sofia Patrícia Nascimento Monteiro, Ines Adriana Pereira, Janice Ruíz-López, María Dolores Rodríguez-Pérez, Celia We aimed to evaluate the changes in eating behaviours of the adult population across 16 European countries due to the COVID-19 confinement and to evaluate whether these changes were somehow related to the severity of the containment measures applied in each country. An anonymous online self-reported questionnaire on socio-demographic characteristics, validated 14-items Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) Adherence Screener (MEDAS) as a reference of a healthy diet, eating and lifestyle behaviours prior to and during the COVID-19 confinement was used to collect data. The study included an adult population residing in 16 European countries at the time of the survey. Aggregated Stringency Index (SI) score, based on data from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, was calculated for each country at the time the questionnaire was distributed (range: 0–100). A total of 36,185 participants completed the questionnaire (77.6% female, 75.2% with high educational level and 42.7% aged between 21 and 35 years). In comparison to pre-confinement, a significantly higher adherence to the MedDiet during the confinement was observed across all countries (overall MEDAS score prior to- and during confinement: 5.23 ± 2.06 vs. 6.15 ± 2.06; p < 0.001), with the largest increase seen in Greece and North Macedonia. The highest adherence to MedDiet during confinement was found in Spain and Portugal (7.18 ± 1.84 and 7.34 ± 1.95, respectively). Stricter contingency restrictions seemed to lead to a significantly higher increase in the adherence to the MedDiet. The findings from this cross-sectional study could be used to inform current diet-related public health guidelines to ensure optimal nutrition is followed among the population, which in turn would help to alleviate the current public health crisis. 2024-01-22T09:19:01Z 2024-01-22T09:19:01Z 2021 journal article Molina-Montes, E., Uzhova, I., Verardo, V., Artacho, R., García-Villanova, B., Guerra-Hernández, E. J., ... & Rodríguez-Pérez, C. (2021). Impact of COVID-19 confinement on eating behaviours across 16 European countries: The COVIDiet cross-national study. Food Quality and Preference, 93, 104231. https://hdl.handle.net/10481/87052 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2021.104231 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ open access Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License Elsevier