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Binge watching is becoming increasingly common and may impact energy balance and body weight. The COVID-19 pandemic has created conditions conducive to binge watching and increased stress. We investigated relationships between COVID-related stress and binge watching behaviors, and potential variation in this relationship by body weight. Adults ( n = 466) completed a cross-sectional online survey assessing binge watching behaviors during and before the pandemic, COVID-related stress, and body weight. Participants reported an increase in binge watching frequency from before to during the pandemic (F 1,401 = 99.970, p < 0.001), with rates of high binge watching ("3-4 times per week" to "3 or more times per day") increasing from 14.6% to 33.0%. Binge watching episode duration increased from 3.26 ± 1.89 h to 3.92 ± 2.08 h ( p < 0.001). The increase in binge watching frequency was greatest in individuals with obesity and high stress (F 4,401 = 4.098, p = 0.003). Participants reporting high stress reported higher frequency of eating while binge watching, as well as higher levels of negative emotional triggers, consequences to binge watching, and lack of control over binge watching (all p < 0.001). Our results show that binge watching increased during the pandemic, with greater increases among individuals reporting higher COVID-related stress, especially those with obesity, and concomitant effects on eating, and highlight a need for interventions to minimize the obesogenic impact of binge watching during the pandemic.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused unprecedented disruptions to the lives of families. This study aimed to investigate the impact of pandemic-associated stress on food parenting practices including interactions surrounding snacks, and child diet., Methods: Parents (N = 318) of 2-12-year old children completed a cross-sectional online survey assessing current COVID-19-specific stress, pre-COVID-19 stress, financial stress (e.g. food insecurity), food parenting practices, and child snack intake frequency. Structural Equation Modeling was used to model simultaneous paths of relationships and test direct and indirect effects., Results: Stress, including financial hardship, was higher compared with before the crisis. The majority of children had regular mealtimes and irregular snack times. Higher COVID-19-specific stress was associated with more non-nutritive use of food and snacks (e.g. emotional and instrumental feeding), but also more structure and positive interactions (e.g. eating with or engaging with child around mealtimes). Higher COVID-19-specific stress was also associated with greater child intake frequency of sweet and savory snacks, with some evidence for mediation by snack parenting practices., Conclusion: Our findings indicate that stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic may be linked to child snack intake with potential impacts on child obesity risk, and suggest several modifiable points of intervention within the family context., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

(1) Background: The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused disruptions to what people eat, but the pandemic's impact on diet varies between individuals. The goal of our study was to test whether pandemic-related stress was associated with food intake, and whether relationships between stress and intake were modified by appetitive and cognitive traits. (2) Methods: We cross-sectionally surveyed 428 adults to examine current intake frequency of various food types (sweets/desserts, savory snacks, fast food, fruits, and vegetables), changes to food intake during the pandemic, emotional overeating (EOE), cognitive flexibility (CF), and COVID-19-related stress. Models tested associations of stress, EOE, and CF with food intake frequency and changes to intake. (3) Results: Models demonstrated that the positive relationship between stress and intake of sweets/desserts was stronger with higher EOE, while the positive relationship between stress and intake of chips/savory snacks was weaker with higher CF. Higher EOE was associated with greater risk of increased intake of palatable foods. (4) Conclusions: Findings suggest that emotional overeating may escalate stress-associated intake of high-sugar foods, and cognitive flexibility may attenuate stress-associated intake of high-fat foods. Differences in appetitive and cognitive traits may explain changes to and variability in food intake during COVID-19, and efforts to decrease emotional overeating and encourage cognitive flexibility could help lessen the effect of COVID-19-related stress on energy dense food intake.