Food consumption of Brazilian university students during the covid-19 pandemic: an integrative review

Abstract

Introduction: The period of COVID-19 pandemic brought a series of changes in the routine of university students who have a high potential to change their eating habits. Objective: To carry out an integrative review regarding the food consumption of university students during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods: For data collection, an adaptation of the PICO strategy was adopted, which included articles from March 2020 to January 2023 from the MEDLINE/PUBMED, LILACS, BVS and Google Scholar databases. The following descriptors were used: “Food Consumption”, “Students”, “Pandemic”, “Coronavirus”, “Eating”, “COVID-19”, “Pandemics”, and “Students”, combined through the Boolean operator “ AND”. Results and Discussion: At the end of the selection of articles, 10 composed this literature review. The food consumption of Brazilian university students was modified during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, with an increase in the consumption of processed/industrialized foods, fast foods, simple sugars, and foods rich in fats and a decrease in the consumption of raw foods, nature, fruits, and vegetables. Conclusion: Characteristic factors of the pandemic period, such as social isolation, sedentary lifestyle, high-stress load, emergency remote teaching, and use of delivery apps seem to have negatively contributed to changing habits, reducing the quality of food.