Survival in Pandemic Times: Managing Energy Efficiency, Food Diversity, and Sustainable Practices of Nutrient Intake Amid COVID-19 Crisis

Geng, Jianli; Haq, Shamsheer Ul; Abbas, Jaffar; Ye, Hongwei; Shahbaz, Pomi; Abbas, Azhar; Cai, Yuyang

doi:10.3389/fenvs.2022.945774

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci., 06 July 2022

Sec. Environmental Economics and Management

Volume 10 - 2022 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.945774

This article is part of the Research Topic Technology-Enabled Circular Economy Practices in Energy Production and Consumption Patterns View all 23 articles

Survival in Pandemic Times: Managing Energy Efficiency, Food Diversity, and Sustainable Practices of Nutrient Intake Amid COVID-19 Crisis

Jianli Geng¹^†

Shamsheer Ul Haq²

Jaffar Abbas³*^†

Hongwei Ye⁴

Pomi Shahbaz⁵

Azhar Abbas⁶

Yuyang Cai⁷*

¹Party School of Jinzhong Municipal Committee of C.P.C, Jinzhong, China
²Department of Economics and Business Administration, Division of Management and Administrative Science, University of Education, Lahore, Pakistan
³School of Media and Communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
⁴School of Public Administration, Hohai University, Nanjing, China
⁵Department of Agricultural Economics, Ondokuz Mayis University, Samsun, Turkey
⁶Institute of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan
⁷School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

The COVID-19 pandemic led to an economic crisis and health emergency, threatening energy efficiency consumption, sustainable food diversity, and households’ nutrition security. The literature documented that environmental threats can divert attention from renewable energy and food security challenges that affect humans’ environmental behaviors. The COVID-19 crisis has consistently influenced environmental behaviors, as it primarily decreased income and disrupted food systems worldwide. This study investigated the COVID-19 consequences on household income, sustainable food diversity, sustainable energy consumption, and nutritional security challenges. The study used a self-structured online survey due to non-pharmaceutical restrictions and collected data from 728 households. The investigators applied t-test and logit regression to analyze the data for drawing results. Descriptive statistics show that COVID-19 has adversely affected the income of more than two-thirds (67%) of households. The pandemic has influenced households’ food consumption, energy, and dietary patterns to safeguard their income. The t-test analysis indicated that households’ food diversity and energy consumption significantly declined during the pandemic, and households consumed low-diversified food to meet their dietary needs more than twofold compared to pre-pandemic levels. The results showed that all nutrient consumption remained considerably lower in the COVID-19. Cereals are the primary source of daily dietary needs, accounting for over two-thirds of total energy and half of the nutrient consumption amid COVID-19. The share of vegetables and fruits in household energy consumption dropped by 40 and 30%. Results exhibited that increasing monthly income was inversely associated with worsening food diversity and intake with energy efficiency. Compared with farmers and salaried employment, wage earners were 0.15 and 0.28 times more likely to experience a decline in consuming food diversity. Medium and large households were 1.95 times and 2.64 times more likely than small, to experience decreased food diversity consumption. Launching a nutrition-sensitive program will help minimize the COVID-19 impacts on energy consumption, food diversity, and nutritional security for low-income individuals. This survey relied on the recall ability of the households for the consumed quantities of food commodities, which may lack accuracy. Longitudinal studies employing probability sampling with larger samples can verify this study’s insightful results.

Introduction

The sustainable practice of energy efficiency products are useful to deal with environmental problems. In the global society, humans need sustainable economic growth for better lifestyles. In the prevailing challenging crisis, technology-driven circular economy practices in energy production and consumption patterns are useful as technology-led circular economy’s sustainable practices help achieve energy efficiency and human food consumption patterns. The COVID-19 crisis that began in late 2019 posed massive consequences on individuals’ lives across the globe (IEA, 2020). Experts expect that this pandemic economic and health crisis can become a turning point for the present world (NCOC, 2021). Public trust in energy-saving knowledge for renewable energy consumption amid COVID-19 has become a challenging situation (Rosak-Szyrocka et al., 2021a; Rosak-Szyrocka and Żywiołek 2022; Żywiołek et al., 2022). It has influenced people in adopting more sustainable lifestyles to consume efficient energy resources to minimize environmental issues (Kanda and Kivimaa, 2020; Muhammad et al., 2020; Sarkis et al., 2020). Some studies have warned that the pandemic situation can divert experts’ concentration from ecological issues and weaken pro-environmental motivations and behaviors (Rosenbloom and Markard, 2020). However, past literature evidence-related to environmental stimulants and behavioral shifts stay fragmented (Weersink et al., 2020). Several past studies have identified enriched environmental motivation (O'Connor and Assaker, 2021; Schiller et al., 2021). Some studies have not found the major effects of economic crises on public environmental motivation (Lucarelli et al., 2020; Rousseau and Deschacht, 2020; Rousseau et al., 2021).

Likewise, some studies have reported increased global environmental friendly behaviors (Rosak-Szyrocka et al., 2021b; Żywiołek et al., 2021). It includes recycling and waste disposal, sustainable food consumption, energy efficiency (Tiwari et al., 2022), and sustainable travel behavior (Kim et al., 2021; O’Connor and Assaker, 2021; Tchetchik et al., 2021). Some studies identified more environmentally harmful human behaviors, such as increased usage of plastic products (Prata et al., 2020). Food consumption, technology-enabled energy efficiency and nutriment security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO, 1996). According to this definition, food security has four dimensions, which are food availability, food access, utilization, and stability. Each dimension of food security also emphasizes nutritional considerations and the term “food and nutrition security” is used to differentiate between quantity and quality (Thompson et al., 2009). Food and nutritional insecurity are attributed to many complex and multidimensional factors like low education level, limited employment opportunities, an abundance of unskilled workers, poor infrastructure, market interventions, inflation, gender discrimination, food waste, and shortages (Cole et al., 2018; Haq et al., 2021). These factors along with climate change and economic slowdowns were responsible for increasing food consumption insecurity in developing countries (FAO et al., 2019; FSIN, 2020).

The provision of sufficient energy and sustainable practices of nutritious food security to the large population of the world is an enormous challenge faced by the global food systems with energy efficiency challenges. The world is still a home of more than 0.8 billion hungry people and about 2 billion people are consuming a nutrient-poor diet disturbing their growth and life expectancy (FAO et al., 2019). Therefore, more than one-fourth of the world’s total population is obese and more than 462 million individuals are underweight (WHO, 2020a). A large proportion of the nutrient-deficient people live in low and middle-income countries (WHO, 2020b). COVID-19 is further deteriorating the food consumption items and nutrition insecurity situation in the world and the numbers related to food-insecure people are likely to increase dramatically around the world especially in low and middle-income countries.

COVID-19 pandemic is a health and economic crisis threatening the food and nutrition security of vulnerable communities worldwide primarily through decreasing income and disrupting food systems. Income impacts of COVID-19 are likely to be severe for the people residing in low and middle-income countries due to already widespread unemployment in these countries and public health measures will further diminish the livelihood opportunities. People will have to buy low-cost and fewer food items to feed their families declining the demand for nutrient-rich food items. Moreover, non-pharmaceutical measures taken globally to contain COVID-19 infections disrupt the nutrition of households by affecting all processes of the food supply chain (production, processing, distribution, consumption, and disposal) especially for perishable farm commodities (vegetable, and fruits) which are an important source of necessary nutrients (Headey and Ruel, 2020). Market distortions triggered by COVID-19 and non-pharmaceutical measures disrupt food market equilibrium and cause price instability. This can instigate people to shift from diversified food consumption of nutrient-rich perishable commodities to less costly nutrient deficient and monotonous diets (Headey and Alderman, 2019). As a result prevalence of malnutrition is likely to increase among people. Malnutrition occurs when an individual’s food does not contain the required amount of necessary nutrients. Nutrients such as protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, zinc, and iodine are needed only in smaller quantities to maintain good health and growth but a lower intake of these nutrients than the required amount can have severe consequences on human health. Perishable commodities like vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, etc. are considered nutrient-rich foods worldwide and therefore, consumption of diverse food commodities is necessary to obtain these nutrients in the required quantity (energy, protein, calcium, phosphorus, zinc, iron, and iodine). Lower intake of these essential micronutrients than recommended quantity can have severe consequences on the health and well-being of the people (WHO, 2020a). Thus, the COVID-19 outbreak poses an additional threat to global food and nutrition security.

The adverse COVID-19 impacts will not uniformly distributed among sectors, regions, societies, and countries due to differences in resources and some sectors will be hit harder compared to others. Similarly, circular economy (CE) describes a model of consumption and production that involves multiple activities like sharing, reusing, restoring and recycling to improve the life cycle of the product (Lehmann et al., 2022). The circular economy explores the circular business model (Awan et al., 2020; Alhawari et al., 2021). Hence, CE described extensive changes production as well as in consumption (Camacho-Otero, et al., 2018). The majority (40–85%) of the food producers in developing countries consists of small producers and the COVID-19 outbreak adversely affected the ability of these producers resulting in food shortages in these countries. Moreover, COVID-19 had devastating effects on the livelihood sources of the poor population, and more than 71 million people were added into severe poverty (UN, 2021). The situation is particularly worrisome in light of the evolving nature of the COVID-19 pandemic for developing countries. Ultimately, the pandemic outcomes, social distancing and public preventive attitudes severely influenced the economies (Aqeel et al., 2021; Li et al., 2021; Paulson et al., 2021; Aqeel et al., 2022; Ge et al., 2022; Yu et al., 2022). The circular economy’s principle can play a vital role in rehabilitating the economies from the crises of production and consumption (Awan and Sroufe 2019; Ikram et al., 2021). The consumer plays a crucial role in purchasing, using, and discharging the used products (Maitre-Ekern and Dalhammar, 2019). Circular economy regarding food systems entails “generating the minimum waste in the food system, utilizing by-products and food waste, re-use of food, nutrient recycling, and changing diet towards more diverse and more efficient food patterns” (Jurgilevich et al., 2016) (Bhutto et al., 2021; Cheng et al., 2021; Rashid Khan et al., 2021).

Pakistan is a developing country and the food and nutrition security situation was already dire in Pakistan before the COVID-19 outbreak. In Pakistan, the majority of the people was consuming fewer food items lacking essential nutrients (Abbas et al., 2021; Aman et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2022; Rahmat et al., 2022; Yao et al., 2022). More than one-fifth of the country’s total population was undernourished and COVID-19 crisis has made it worst (Abbas 2020a; Shuja et al., 2020a; Abbas 2021; Wang et al., 2021; Zhou et al., 2021; Fu and Abbas 2022). More than 52 million people were earning less than 1.25 dollars per day (FAO, 2020a) and two-fifth of the total population was multi-dimensionally poor. Similarly, more than 17% of the total children under the age of 5 years faced stunted growth in the country (FAO et al., 2019). More than 70% of the population uses iodine less than body requirement (GNR, 2020). The nutrition security will further deteriorate in the country and the nutrient deficiency problem is expected to increase significantly due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the country (Abbas 2020b; Shuja et al., 2020b; Mamirkulova et al., 2022), especially in those regions, which have already a high prevalence of food and nutrition insecurity (FAO, 2020b).

The Government of Pakistan adopted non-pharmaceutical measures like wearing a mask, restricting movement and social gathering, suspension of intercity and interprovincial traveling. Further, shifting educational institutions to online through technology-enabled tools, lockdowns at the micro and macro level, and making PCR test and quarantines compulsory for inbound passengers to control the spread of the pandemic in the country due to absence of authentic cure and insufficient vaccines during the pandemic period (Haq et al., 2020). No doubt that these measures assist the government to contain the spread of viral disease in the country but the COVID-19 pandemic and public health measures also have adverse impacts on the economy; as a result, poverty is projected to increase by 33.3% in the country (Rasheed et al., 2021). Even though COVID-19 is affecting the livelihood of the majority of the population, the informal workforce who are 73% of the total labor force working outside agriculture will be hardest hit by COVID-19 and millions of those workers can lose their livelihood source (Bokhari, 2020; Islam et al., 2020).

The government of Pakistan is trying hard to minimize the adverse impacts of COVID-19 on the income and nutrition of the poor people by providing direct cash transfers but the limited economic resource of the country is a hurdle in meeting the needs of all the vulnerable communities in the country. Except for providing cash transfer to the people, the government also adopted an expansionary monetary and fiscal policy to minimize the impacts of COVID-19 on the economy (GoP, 2021). Even though the government took different policy initiatives to minimize the adverse effects of the pandemic on food and nutrition security, they are no panacea.

Although several studies explored the impact of COVID-19 on food consumption patterns, none of the prior studies measured the impact of COVID-19 on nutritional quantity and quality of households (Eftimov et al., 2020; Shahbaz et al., 2021b; Galali, 2021; Grant et al., 2021; Güney and Sangün, 2021; Huber et al., 2021; Janssen et al., 2021; Shahbaz et al., 2022). In the challenging situation of the pandemic, the vaccine availability is not easy to access (Su et al., 2021a; Su et al., 2021b; Su et al., 2021c; Su et al., 2021d). Besides, the literature related to the effects of COVID-19 on the daily intake of essential nutrients is also rare. This study aimed to bridge this gap in the fresh literature. This study has addressed this identified gap in the literature.

This research first intended to look at the quantity (energy efficiency) and quality (food diversity) of food consumed by households before and during the COVID-19 period. The study hypothesized that food and nutrition security had deteriorated during the 1-year COVID-19 outbreak. The study’s second objective was to compare the intake of essential nutrients needed for body growth before and during the COVID-19 periods. The hypothesis was that nutrient intake during the pandemic had decreased compared to the normal period. The third objective was to determine the share of different food groups in energy and nutrient provision to the households before and during COVID-19. The hypothesis was that the efficient energy intake and nutrients from perishable food commodities (vegetables and fruits) decreased during COVID-19 than during normal periods. Besides, this research also explored the factors determining whether sustainable practices of food diversity and energy efficiency deteriorated during the COVID-19 period.

This study is the first that explores the sustainable practices for energy efficiency goals, food consumption, and nutrition security of households during the pandemic. It would assist in yielding significant contributions for helping decision-making on sustainable practice to meet energy efficiency goals, sustainable dietary consumption, and how technology-enables tools helped humans in the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan and worldwide. This pandemic’s economic crisis has affected environmental behaviors, sustainable food consumption, and green decision-making to achieve energy efficiency. This study investigates the degree of change in the environmental behavioral change of people for green energy and sustainable food consumption. This research provides valuable insights for decision-makers to note individuals’ environmental behavior for seeking green energy and sustainable consumption of food with its potential drivers in the ongoing economic crisis. This research study significantly contributes to the growing scientific literature, which helps us understand, predict, and avoid potential negative consequences on individuals’ environmental inspirations and behaviors caused by the COVID-19 crisis and similar economic and health crises that may arise again the future. Such emergencies cause economic and ecological challenges for humans worldwide. This study provides important implications for health experts and policymakers who emphasize lower food and nutrition security. Most importantly, this study helps to cope with any emergency environment that might arise in the future again. This study’s potential beneficiaries include government departments, stakeholders’ of food supply chain, and nutritionists, who are primarily responsible for ensuring healthy and sustainable human health.

Materials and Methods

Questionnaire and Data Collection

This current research employed online survey for data collection due to rising infections and non-pharmaceutical measures imposed by the government to contain the viral disease in the country (Aman et al., 2021; Moradi et al., 2021a; Paulson et al., 2021; Farzadfar et al., 2022). A well-structured questionnaire consisting of three main sections was constructed on Google form and the link was shared through social media and communication applications like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and email. The first section of the questionnaire was about the socioeconomic characteristics of the households (Yoosefi Lebni et al., 2020; Moradi et al., 2021b). The second section of the questionnaire was about the impact of COVID-19 on income and coping strategies adopted by households to mitigate the income effect (Shuja et al., 2020a; Maqsood et al., 2021). The third section was about the consumption of 69 daily food items, which are a part and parcel of households’ kitchens. Of the food items used in the study, 3 were cereals, 27 were vegetables, 17 were fruits, 4 were milk and milk products, 8 were pulses, 5 were meat items, 2 were fat and oil, and 3 were spices. This section was divided further into subparts according to the categorization of food items in the country. The data collection instrument did not include food items such as chocolates, sweets, biscuits, cakes, etc. which are used only on special occasions like birthdays and marriage ceremonies in the country. The potential respondents were informed about the purpose and time required to complete the information before starting the survey and only after getting consent to participate and publish the results of this study, they were guided toward the survey. The formula by Krejcie and Morgan (1970) is helpful for researchers and we also employed this formula to draw the desired sample size for the present study.

n = \frac{X^{2} * N * P * (1 - P)}{d^{2} * (N - 1) + (X^{2} * P * (1 - P))}

Where.

n = Sample size.

$X^{2}$ = Chi Square for specified confidence level at 1 degree of freedom.

N = Population Size = (Total households in Pakistan).

P = Population proportion (Assumed 0.50 here).

D = Margin of error (3.6 % in current study).

This formula resulted in a total sample size of 725 for the current study. The investigators collected data through an online survey from 740 households in February and March 2021. The study conducted initial screening, removed 12 incomplete responses, and eliminated them from the final analysis. Therefore, we performed the final analysis based on 728 responses. The questionnaire was prepared in the national language (Urdu) for better understanding to ensure the participation of the maximum number of households. The respondents enquired about their gender, residential district, and area. The results showed that both female and male participants adequately represented their respective population segments. Besides, the households recruited for this survey belong to regions scattered in rural and urban areas all over the country.

Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework of this research comprises four main constituents: the first component is COVID-19 and non-pharmaceutical measures; the second component is COVID-19 impacts; the third component is household characteristics, and the fourth component of the study is the dietary intake of households (Figure 1). The implications of COVID-19 are the witnessed and predicted adverse effects of the pandemic on society in the country. For instance, the pandemic has changed households’ food purchasing and eating behaviors (Ben Hassen et al., 2021). Similarly, COVID-19 has also adversely affected the socio-economic conditions of the households (Carroll et al., 2020). Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has left millions of people unemployed (Fana et al., 2020), decreased income (Radulescu et al., 2020; Shahbaz et al., 2021a), restricted mobility and logistics (Haq et al., 2020; An et al., 2021), distorted food supply chains (Aday and Aday, 2020), and increased food prices worldwide (Asante and Mills, 2020). These multi-dimensional impacts of the pandemic affect the dietary intake of households. Therefore, the current linear production and consumption system exert tremendous pressure on the current food systems (Giudice et al., 2020). There is a need for a new economic model that generates a sustainable food system. This model should increase the volume of circulating nutrients and matter, reduce food wastage, and diversify the consumption of nutrients parallel to the minimum use of auxiliary inputs such as energy (Jurgilevich et al., 2016). The dietary intake here refers to food diversity, energy intake, and consumption of necessary nutrients like protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, zinc, and iodine. Moreover, household characteristics are also important determinants of dietary intake during COVID-19 as some people will be affected more than others depending on socioeconomic status, gender, and livelihood sources.

FIGURE 1

FIGURE 1. Conceptual framework ± and- show positive/negative and negative association between two constituents respectively).

Measuring Food Diversity and Important Nutritional Indicators

Food diversity is a vital measure of diet quality and intake of various food commodities within or across diverse food groups delivers both the required energy and nutrients necessary for healthy growth and body development (Haq et al., 2021). Food items that are a regular part of a household’s diet is classified into six food categories in Pakistan namely cereals, vegetables, fruits, meat and pulses, dairy products, and fats and oils (FAO and GoP, 2021). The households must consume food items proportionally from all food categories to achieve high food or diet diversity. Thus, households consuming food items from a few food categories will have lower food diversity compared to those households consuming food items from more food categories. The Simpson index was used to measure the food diversity of the households in this study which not only indicates diversity in the diet but also used to indicate the nutritional sufficiency of families (Ruel, 2003; Nguyen and Winters, 2011). Energy (calorie) share of each food category was used to estimate the food diversity of households by using the below formula;

F D = 1 - \sum_{c = 1}^{n} p_{i}^{2}

Where.

FD = Food diversity

p_i=Energy share of the ith food category

n = Total food categories

c = 1 … … 6.

Simpson diversity index’s value remains between 0 and 1. Here, 1 indicates the infinite food diversity and 0 shows no food diversity. The respondents were also categorized based on their food diversity scores into low (0.00–0.33), moderately (0.34–0.66), and highly (0.67–1.00) diversified households. Thus, food diversity was estimated for households before and during COVID-19.

Except computing food diversity for the households, daily intake of energy (kcal) and important nutrients (calcium, protein, phosphorus, iron, zinc, and iodine) essential for the human body was also estimated from the food items consumed by the households. A composite food table index jointly prepared by FAO and GoP (2001) was used to estimate the daily intake of nutritional indicators during the normal and COVID-19 period from the consumed amount of food items for the households. A normal adult needs 1,600–3,000 kcal/day to sustain the body weight (Zawn, 2021). Therefore, households were divided into three groups according to their per day calorie consumption. Households consuming <1,600 kcal/day were categorized as low, households taking 1,600–3,000 kcal/day were considered normal, and households with daily intake >3,000 were considered as high-calorie consumptions.

Moreover, to check whether food diversity, energy intake, and important nutrients had worsened or not, quantities of nutritional indicators during COVID-19 were subtracted from normal period quantities and the difference greater than zero indicated a worsened nutritional security for the households.

Empirical Methods

The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics (mean, frequency, and standard deviation), t-test, and logit regression model. Household characteristics and coping measures adopted to minimize the impact of COVID-19 on income were examined through descriptive statistics. The difference in food diversity, energy, and nutritional indicators’ intake before and during COVID-19 was analyzed by using the t-test. Moreover, determinants of whether food diversity and energy intake of households had worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic were investigated through logit regression expressed as

y_{i} = α_{i} + β 1 F_{i} + β 2 L_{i} + β 3 I_{i} + λ x_{i} + μ

Where.

yi = binary outcome variable for household.

Β1, β2, and β3 are parameters of family size (F), livelihood source ( $L$ ), and monthly income I for ith household

x_i = ith Household’s characteristics

β = Household characteristics’ coefficient.

$α_{i}$ = Constant

μ = error term.

Two separate logit regression models were used to determine the determinants of food diversity and energy intake of households. In the first model, y takes the value 1 if the food diversity of a household was worsened due to COVID-19 and 0 otherwise. In another model, y was assigned the value 1 if the energy intake of households deteriorated during COVID-19 than normal periods and 0 otherwise. Family size, monthly income, and source of livelihood are three predictors of key interest in the study. Thus, the research mainly focused that how food diversity and energy intake of households with different family sizes, income sources, and monthly income levels are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The household was categorized into low (>PKR50000), medium (PKR50000-PKR100000), and high income (<PKR100000) quantiles according to their monthly income. The other predictors used in the study were household characteristics such as age, gender, educations, residential area, agricultural land, and market possession of agricultural land.

Results and Discussion

The sustainable practice of energy efficiency products ar useful to deal with environmental problems. In the global society, humans need sustainable economic growth for better lifestyles. In the prevailing challenging crisis, technology-driven circular economy practices in energy production and consumption patterns are useful as technology-led circular economy’s sustainable practices help achieve energy efficiency and human food consumption patterns. The COVID-19 crisis that began in late 2019 posed massive consequences on individuals’ lives across the globe (IEA, 2020). Experts expect that this pandemic economic and health crisis can become a turning point for the present world. It has influenced people in adopting more sustainable lifestyles to consume efficient energy resources to minimize environmental issues (Kanda and Kivimaa, 2020; Muhammad et al., 2020; Sarkis et al., 2020). Some studies have warned that the pandemic situation can divert experts’ concentration from ecological issues and weaken pro-environmental motivations and behaviors (Rosenbloom and Markard, 2020). However, past literature evidence-related to environmental stimulants and behavioral shifts stays fragmented. Several past studies have identified enriched environmental motivation (O'Connor and Assaker, 2021; Schiller et al., 2021). Some studies have not found the major effects of economic crises on public environmental motivation (Lucarelli et al., 2020; Rousseau and Deschacht, 2020; Rousseau et al., 2021). (Schacht and von Zimmerman, 2020; Čadová, 2020). Likewise, some studies have reported increased global environmental friendly behaviors. It includes recycling and waste disposal, sustainable food consumption, energy efficiency, and sustainable travel behavior (Kim et al., 2021; O’Connor and Assaker, 2021; Tchetchik et al., 2021). Some studies identified more environmentally harmful human behaviors, such as increased usage of plastic products (Prata et al., 2020).

This study is the first that explores the sustainable practices for energy efficiency goals, food consumption, and nutrition security of households during the pandemic. It would assist in yielding significant contributions for helping decision-making on sustainable practice to meet energy efficiency goals, sustainable dietary consumption, and how technology-enables tools helped humans in the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan and worldwide. This pandemic’s economic crisis has affected environmental behaviors, sustainable food consumption, and green decision-making to achieve energy efficiency. This study investigates the degree of change in the environmental behavioral change of people for green energy and sustainable food consumption. This research provides valuable insights for decision-makers to note individuals’ environmental behavior for seeking green energy and sustainable consumption of food with its potential drivers in the ongoing economic crisis. This research study significantly contributes to the growing scientific literature, which helps us understand, predict, and avoid potential negative consequences on individuals’ environmental inspirations and behaviors caused by the COVID-19 crisis and similar economic and health crises that may arise again in the future. Such emergencies cause economic and ecological challenges for humans worldwide.

Socio-Economic Characteristics of the Households

Socioeconomic characteristics of the households affect the dietary choices and consumption of food items. Table 1 depicts the summary of the socioeconomic characteristics of the participating households. More than two-fifths of the total households consisted of females. The average age of the participants was 47.58 years. The mean education of the households was more than 11 years. The education level of the households participating in this study was higher compared to the previous studies conducted in the country. This is not surprising as the survey was conducted online expected to be completed by the people who were using social media applications and could answer the queries without any support. Almost three-fifths of the total households were living in rural areas. The reason may be that more than 60% of the country’s population still resides in rural areas (PBS, 2018). The average agricultural landholding was less than 4 acres. The findings related to family size revealed that more than half of the total households consisted of medium size families. Only less than one-fourth of total households had small families. The plausible explanation of large family size is that majority of the households live in a joint family system in the country and more than one family lives under one roof headed by a single member of the family (Haq et al., 2021). Farming was the regular source of income for more than one-fourth of the households. Foreign remittances from millions of overseas Pakistanis working outside the country are also an important source of income for their households as well as for the economy of the country. Moreover, agriculture and remittances play an important part to decrease poverty among households (Liu et al., 2020). This was also depicted in the finding, as a large proportion of the participating households were dependent on foreign remittances. The other main livelihood sources were salaried employment, self-employment, and wages. Almost two-thirds of the households belonged to low-income quantile and more than one-third of the household belonged to medium-income quantile. This might be because Pakistan belongs to the lower-middle-income category of countries (World Bank, 2020). See Table 1 below.

TABLE 1

TABLE 1. Summary of the households’ characteristics.

Impact of COVID-19 on Income

There is consensus among the scientific community that COVID-19 will have severe implications on the income of the households without discriminating ethnicity, society, region, and border. The level of severity may vary among different groups as people already poor are likely to suffer more due to COVID-19 (Kansiime et al., 2021). More than two-thirds of the participating households affirmed that the COVID-19 had negatively affected their earnings (Figure 2). Besides income effect, households also cited other challenges like stress, anxiety, restricted social gathering, and interpreted work schedules faced due to COVID-19.

FIGURE 2

FIGURE 2. Income impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

Coping Measures to Minimize COVID-19 Pandemic Effect on Income

Table 2 disaggregates the measures by the regular livelihood source adopted by the respondents to cushion the severe implications of the pandemic on their income. More than two-thirds of the self-employed and wage workers were forced to change their dietary pattern during the COVID-19 pandemic which was also the most adopted measure by the households dependent on foreign remittances and farming indicating the severity of the impact on their main livelihood source. The reason may be the countrywide lockdown imposed to contain the spread of the viral disease. More than one-third of the households engaged in self-employment and farming activities for their livelihood started to cultivate their kitchen commodities like vegetables. The possible explanation may be COVID-19 induced supply/demand shocks creating market instability leading to inflation. The prices of food commodities increased more than 4% during COVID-19 compared to the previous year (Neill, 2021). Moreover, the negative impact of COVID-19 also forced households to stop buying non-food items (clothes, and shoes) to minimize the impact of the pandemic on their income, and more than a half and one-third of the households dependent on wages and self-employment respectively, took this measure. COVID-19 wrought havoc on the world economy without border distinction and therefore, more than two-thirds of the families dependent on the foreign remittances had to use their previous savings during COVID- 19. More than one-fourth of the households having livelihood source wages and farming had to sell their assets to compensate income losses caused by COVID-19. Similarly, more than one-third of the households had to borrow from relatives, friends, family, etc. to meet their needs during a pandemic. Mawejje (2019) and Yilma et al. (2014) also reported the adoption of similar strategies by the household to decrease adverse income impacts of different disasters. See Table 2 below.

TABLE 2

TABLE 2. Measures to minimize COVID-19 income impact with regular income source (%).

Food Diversity and Daily Per Capita Energy Intake Before and During COVID-19

The results related to food diversity and daily energy intake revealed that the food and nutrition security situation had deteriorated during the 1 year of the pandemic (Table 3). The outcomes of food diversity also indicated that households were not consuming food items from all groups proportionally and their daily food consumption requirement was fulfilled by only a few food groups before and during COVID-19. The comparison of diversity scores before and during COVID-19 depicted that households used less diversified food during the year of COVID-19 compared to the normal period. Moreover, the proportion of households in the low diversity category had increased more than two folds during COVID-19. More than two-thirds of the households were using moderately diversified food before which decreased to half of the households during the pandemic period. The reason may be COVID-19 induced income and market shocks. The other reason for the low diversity level prevailing among household may be that calories from nutrient-rich perishable commodities such as vegetable, fruits, and meats are 10% more costly compared to calories from cereals (wheat, rice, and maize) in low and middle-income countries aggravating the shift to nutrient deficient and monotonous diets (Headey and Alderman 2019).

TABLE 3

TABLE 3. Food diversity and daily per capita energy intake situation in pre and during COVID-19.

The per capita calorie consumption of households reduced significantly during the pandemic compared to pre-COVID-19. This may be because of the change in the dietary pattern of the households compelled by the lower-income and shrinking economy of the country during COVID-19 (World Bank, 2020). The proportion of households consuming less than 1,600 per capita kcal/day increased considerably due to the influx of 13 percent additional households during COVID-19. Households with normal and high daily per capita energy intake also decreased 6 and 7% respectively during the pandemic compared to the normal period. See Table 3 below.

Intake of Essential Nutrients Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Intake of essential nutrients in recommended quantity is necessary for good health, disease prevention, and well-being of the people. Table 4 presents the results related to the mean daily per capita intake of vital nutrients. The findings showed that the mean per capita intake of all necessary nutrients reduced significantly during COVID-19 than the normal period. Per capita, calcium consumption was already lower among households than the recommended nutrition intake (800 mg/day) during the normal period and COVID-19 had stretched this gap further. Per capita intake of calcium and phosphorus decreased by 62 mg/day and 118 mg/day respectively during the pandemic compared to pre-COVID-19. Similarly, iron intake decreased more than 3 mg/day during COVID-19. Households were only taking half of the recommended level of the iodine (150 ug/day) before COVID-19 and the situation had become worse during pandemic as the per capita intake of Iodine during COVID-19 reduced considerably. The reason may be the use of less diversified food by the households enforced by COVID-19 induced livelihood shocks resulting in lower-income. Low income limits the ability of households to consume healthy foods (Penne and Goedemé, 2021). See Table 4 below.

TABLE 4

TABLE 4. Mean daily per capita nutrient intake situation before and COVID-19 period.

Share of Food Groups in Daily Per Capita Energy and Nutrients’ Intake

Table 5 depicts the disaggregated share of each food group in daily per capita energy and nutrients delivery to the households. Per capita, energy, and nutrient intake from all seven groups of the food items declined noticeably during the COVID-19 period than the normal period. Cereals were the main source of energy and all essential nutrients for the households before and during COVID-19 periods. Cereals accounted for more than two-thirds of the total daily per capita calories intake before and during the COVID-19 period. Even though the amount of the calories provided during COVID-19 decreased significantly, the overall percentage share in the total calories provision remained unchanged. The results corroborate with the previous study by Haq et al., 2020 who also reported that more than 66% of the calories were provided by cereals in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Similarly, cereals also accounted for one-half of the daily per capita proteins, phosphorus, iron, and zinc of the households. Meat and pulses were the second-largest contributing group to the daily per capita energy intake accounting for more than 11% percent of the total calories consumed by the households during and normal COVID-19 period. Fats and oils were also important sources of energy for the households. The share of the dairy products in energy and nutrient provision remained stable during COVID-19. The possible explanation may be that dairy products are self-produced by households without dependence on the market. The share of the vegetable in the daily per capita calorie supply to the households reduced 55 kcal/day during COVID-19. It shows the decrease in the consumption of vegetables and this may be because the market interruption caused by COVID-19 prompted supply and demand shocks. See Table 5 below.

TABLE 5

TABLE 5. Share of food groups in daily per capita energy and nutrients before and during COVID-19.

Change in Share of Energy and Nutrients’ Intake Based on Food Groups During Pandemic Compared to Normal Period

Figure 3 displays the percentage change in energy and nutrients’ intake segregated by food groups. Daily per capita energy and nutrients intake of the households witnessed the highest decrease from perishable farm commodities (vegetable, and fruits) among all food groups during the COVID-19 period compared to the normal period. For example; daily per capita, energy intake from vegetables decreased 40% during the pandemic in comparison to pre-COVID-19. Similarly, the daily per capita intake of all nutrients except zinc from fruits decreased by more than 30% during 1 year of COVID-19 than the normal period. The results agree with the previous study by Harris et al. (2020) who also reported that people prefer cheaper foods over expansive nutrient-rich perishable commodities. The share of cereals in households’ daily per capita intake also decreased more than 9% among all nutrients during COVID-19. Similarly, the share of meat and pulses also shrank more than 22% in daily per capita energy, and calcium intake during COVID-19 while this contraction was more than 18% in zinc consumption. The COVID-19 will have severe implications on all four dimensions of food security by disrupting all stages of the food supply chain. Similarly, public health measures taken by the countries can destroy perishable commodities fruits and vegetables (Laborde et al., 2020; Nicola et al., 2020). Even in advanced countries like Canada overstocked perishable commodities were destroyed or dumped (Bellany and Corkery, 2020). Besides, the increasing prices and lower-income could also be one of the main reasons affecting the consumption of farm commodities ultimately leading lower level of nutrition intake.

FIGURE 3

FIGURE 3. Change in share of energy and nutrients’ intake based on food groups during COVID-19 period compared to normal period.

Determinants of Worsened Food Diversity During COVID-19

Female households were 1.618 times more likely to suffer from worsened food diversity during COVID-19 compared to males (Table 6). The reason might be that females had scarce opportunities to work already compared to males in the country and the COVID-19 pandemic has made these chances scanter. The other reason could be that the average labour force participation of females was only 21% compared to males (81%) % in Pakistan (International Labour Organization, 2020) due to the persistence of gender gaps in wages and access to education. These gaps are expected to wider further during COVID-19 which ultimately will affect the food diversity and nutrition diversity of females in the country. A household with one acre of land was 0.794 times less likely to report worsened food diversity during COVID-19. The reason may be that while other people might be struggling to purchase food items due to a decrease in purchasing power and unavailability of food items; a household with its land can increase food diversity by cultivating diverse food items. There was a significant positive association between increasing family size and worsening food diversity. Medium and large-sized families respectively were 1.95 and 2.64 times more likely to experience deteriorated food diversity compared to small-sized families. A plausible explanation is that families with a large number of persons need food items in bulk quantity and COVID-19 induced income and price shocks may force these families to compromise on the variety and quality of the consumed food over quantity. Kansiime et al. (2021) also reported that households in Kenya and Uganda had significantly reduced the consumption of vegetables, fruits, and fish during COVID-19.

TABLE 6

TABLE 6. Determinants of worsened food diversity.

Farmers and salaried households respectively were 0.15 and 0.28 times less likely to indicate worsened food diversity than wage earners during COVID-19. Wage-earners working in informal sectors are the most vulnerable group of people of the society in low and middle-income countries as they are wholly dependent on daily and weekly wages without stable monthly income but tighter measures imposed in these countries severely harmed the wage earners’ income. According to Chriscaden (2021), more than half of the world workforce may lose their employment sources mostly in countries with large informal economies. Pakistan has a large informal economy and 73% of the labour force outside agriculture is engaged in informal sectors for their livelihood (Bokhari, 2020). Islam et al. (2020) also stated that millions of informal workers can lose their livelihood source during COVID-19. Therefore, the food and nutrition quality of wage earner is probably to suffer more compared to other occupations.

The findings also depicted a significant inverse relationship between increasing monthly income and worsening food diversity. The households with their income levels in the second and third income quantile were respectively 0.11 and 0.19 times less likely to suffer from falling food diversity than households in the first income quantile. This finding further demonstrates that low-income people are more vulnerable to unhealthy and monotonous diets during the pandemic. This is maybe because the availability of more income affects healthy food choices. Arndt et al. (2020) stated that non-pharmaceutical measures imposed worldwide will hurt the food security of low-income people. See Table 6 below.

Determinants of Deteriorated Daily Per Capita Energy Intake (Kcal/Day)

Table 7 summarizes the factors that determine whether the daily per capita energy intake of households deteriorated during 1 year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Females compared to males were 1.525 times more likely to experience decreased daily per capita energy intake. The reason might be gender differences prevailing in the country. Higher gender differences are linked to higher under nutrition in the country (Tariq, 2018) one acre of agricultural land was likely to increase the daily per capita energy intake of households by 0.962 times.

TABLE 7

TABLE 7. Determinants of deteriorated daily per capita energy intake (kcal/day).

Households engaged in farming and salaried employments for their livelihood were respectively 0.51 and 0.64 times less likely to experience declined daily per capita energy intake in comparison to wage earners during COVID-19. The above results of calorie source indicated that a major share of the daily calories was provided by cereals and cultivation of cereal crops for home consumption is the primary purpose of the farmers. They store these cereals for home consumption for the whole year at the time of harvesting and on the other hand wage earners purchase these cereals daily, weekly, and fortnightly making them dependent on market outcomes for their energy. Similarly, salaried persons were also receiving their salary throughout the pandemic year which helped them to maintain their energy intake better than wage earners. Wage-earners were 0.30 and 0.26 times more likely to report the decreased per capita energy intake compared to self-employed and foreign remittances dependent households respectively.

Consistent with the overhead findings on the inverse correlation between rising monthly income and deteriorated food diversity households in low-income quantile were more likely to reveal the adverse effects of COVID-19 on their daily per capita energy intake. For example, households whose income level was less than PKR50000 were 0.41 and 0.52 times more likely to suffer from aggravated per capita energy intake than households having income between PKR 50000–100000 and higher than PKR 100000 respectively. This further proves that low-income people were more susceptible to food and nutrition insecurity. See Table 7.

Conclusion

In the prevalent economic crisis, technology-enabled circular economy practices for achieving green energy efficiency in production and sustainable consumption patterns are vital because technology-led sustainable practices help achieve energy efficiency an food consumption patterns. There is evidence that the COVID-19 economic and health crisis has changed many environmental behaviors. Have these changes taken place because of new situational constraints and opportunities developed by the pandemic related measures. Have these changes driven the challenges in response to environmental effects on people.

This research measured the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on sustainable patterns income, food diversity, and energy and nutrition intake of households in Pakistan. Pakistan imposed non-pharmaceutical measures to curb the spread of the pandemic like all other countries. Results related income effect show that COVID-19 had severely impacted the income of more than two-thirds of the total households. COVID-19 implications on income forced the majority of households to change their dietary patterns. Additionally, households also adopted other measures like use of previous saving, cultivation of own kitchen items, borrowing, and stop purchasing non-food items to minimize income losses caused by the viral disease.

The outcomes related to food diversity and daily energy intake pointed out that households were fulfilling their daily energy requirement from only a few food groups before and COVID-19 further amplified the already worse situation of food diversity. The proportion of households also increased more than two folds in the low diversified group during COVID-19 compared to the normal period. Similarly, households in normal and high-energy intake groups also reduced significantly during COVID-19. Moreover, intake of essential nutrients declined significantly during COVID-19 than before.

The findings regarding the share of each group in daily energy and nutrients intake revealed that the portion of all food groups reduced significantly in energy and nutrient provision to the households during the pandemic. The results also indicated that more than two-thirds of daily energy intake and half of the nutrients’ daily consumed quantity were provided by the cereals pointing out the monotonous nature of the diet of the household. The share of dairy products in energy and nutrient provision remained stable during COVID-19. Percentage change in the share of each group depicted that share of nutrient-rich perishable commodities witnessed the highest decrease in energy and nutrients provided to the households during COVD-19.

Logistic regression outcomes indicated that wage earners were the most vulnerable group of people to the pandemic in terms of diet diversity and energy intake compared to those engaged in agriculture, salaried jobs, self-employment, and foreign remittances dependents. The small-sized families were less likely to suffer from deteriorated food diversity than medium and large size families during the COVID-19 pandemic. The significant negative association of increasing monthly income with deteriorated food diversity and energy intake confirmed that the food and nutrition security of households with low income were likely to suffer more compared to higher income levels due to COVID-19. The small sized families and highly stabilized income can contribute majorly in Circulating food systems that is based on the circular economy principle.

The study outcomes recommend the following measures to assist in maintaining sustainable food and nutrition security of the households during the pandemic. First, Government needs to increase the outreach and assistance amount of current social security programs to deliver its benefits to the maximum vulnerable groups, which meet their food needs fully because present social security programs meet neither of the two above requirements. For this purpose, structural changes in social security programs are recommended that take into account family needs during such catastrophes. Secondly, the government needs to start nutrition-sensitive educational programs for the awareness of the people to decrease the adverse impacts of pandemic induced food and nutrition security shocks.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning here that data was collected online due to non-pharmaceutical measures imposed in the country to control the rising infections but it does not limit the generalizability of our outcomes, as the majority of parameters were adequate to represent the population. The data provided important insights on the food and nutrition status of the households, which can be of interest to policymakers of Pakistan as well as in other developing countries. Future researchers can extend this research by using alternative sampling methods.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

ETHICS Statement

Ethics review and approval/written informed consent was not required as per local legislation and institutional requirements.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

Funding

This work was supported by the Shanghai Magnolia Science & Technology Talent Fund (grant number: 11BA1408400) and the Institute of College Student Development, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (grant number: DFY-SJ-2021043 & DFY-SJ-2021055).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

References

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