RELATING TO THE FINDINGS THAT PEOPLE ARE EATING LESS HEALTHY AND EXERCISING LESS:
COVID-19-induced interruptions to daily patterns likely play a role in the changes
in eating and exercise behavior reported by roughly 2/3 of respondents. Stable environmental
contexts are a prerequisite for habits and as a result, life events that eliminate
familiar contextual cues are favorable for disrupting existing habits, both healthy
and unhealthy. Whether someone’s work lunch consists of a trip to the gym or a visit
to the fast-food restaurant around the corner, this pattern is broken without going
to the office. When attempting to build new, positive habits at home, piggybacking
desired behaviors onto existing in-home habits can be an effective strategy. Have
a piece of fruit after your morning coffee or take a walk around the block after taking
out your trash." said Dr. Vincent Berardi, a computational health scientist who conducts research on how to get people to engage
healthier behaviors.
RELATING TO THE FINDINGS THAT PEOPLE IN FRONTLINE JOBS DID NOT PERCEIVE GREATER OVERALL
RISKS TO COVID-19 THAN OTHERS: "It could be the case that some people go into work in these jobs because they perceive
fewer risks of it being dangerous. The opposite could be true as well, that doing
these types of jobs makes people feel more confident about infection risk. “Common
sense usually leads us to think that behavior follows emotion – for example ‘we run
because we are afraid.’ But research in emotion going back to William James at the
turn of the last century, and cognitive dissonance research in the 1950s suggests
that the opposite is often true, that ‘we are afraid because we run,’” says Dr. David Pincus, a clinical psychologist who studies psychotherapy and resilience.
