How Ya Doin'? with COVID-19

COVID-19 has had a profound negative impact on individuals, communities, and society. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on sleep patterns, eating, mood, physical activity, and screen time of students and adults. We hypothesized that participants experienced fewer sleeping hours, more unhealthy eating habits, a severe change in mood and physical activity, and increased screen time hours after COVID-19 restrictions were implemented compared to before COVID-19. Participants were given an online survey with 10 questions about sleep patterns, eating habits, mood, physical activity, and screen time and asked to rate each item based on their experience before and during COVID-19 restrictions. Results were summarized and compared between the timepoints of “before” and “during” COVID-19 restrictions. For the 227 participants, quality of sleep, eating habits, mood, and physical activity mostly decreased, whereas screen time increased. These changes were statistically significant in middle and high school students but not adults. Each area of question had slightly different results when looking at different ages and gender. For example, sleep was significantly worse in middle school students and significantly improved in high school students, but the worsening in adults was not statistically significant. Based on these results, we concluded that COVID-19 has overall negatively affected daily life with worse sleep, eating, mood, physical activity, and screen time.