Negative emotions increase unhealthy eating: Evidence from the Wuhan lockdown during COVID‐19
利用武汉封城作为外部冲击，研究发现封城引发的负面情绪显著增加了消费者对不健康食品（如薯片、含糖饮料）的支出，且年轻和富裕群体受影响更大。
This paper studies how negative emotions like stress, anxiety, and boredom can affect unhealthy food consumption. Using the Wuhan lockdown as an external shock, we examine the changes in food consumption in a city that was not in lockdown. We applied the difference-in-differences method to a large scanner dataset from a retail monopoly in China. Our findings reveal that negative emotions induced by the pandemic lockdown significantly elevated consumer spending on unhealthy food items such as crisps, sugary beverages, regular soda, and low-alcohol beverages. Notably, the effect of unhealthy food consumption was more pronounced among younger and wealthier demographics. Triggering factors, like information about confirmed new deaths and infections as well as proximity to local hospitals, were found to strongly influence the consumption of unhealthy foods. Overall, the lockdown's impact extended beyond short-term increases in snack consumption to substantial increases in overall dietary and nutritional intake.