Abstract
Background: Increased time spent on home food preparation is associated with higher diet quality, but a lack of time is often reported as a barrier to this practice. We compared time use in individuals who do more versus less foodwork (tasks required to feed ourselves and our households, including home food preparation). Methods: Cross-sectional analysis of the UK Time Use Survey 2014–15, participants aged 16+ (N = 6143). Time use over 24 h was attributed to seven compositional parts: personal care; sleep; eating; physical activity; leisure screen time; work (paid and unpaid); and socialising and hobbies. Participants were categorised as doing no, ‘some’ (<70 min), or ‘more’ foodwork (≥70 min). We used compositional data analysis to test whether time-use composition varied between these participant groups, determine which of the parts varied between groups, and test for differences across population subgroups. Results: Participants who spent more time on foodwork spent less time on sleep, eating, and personal care and more time on work. Women who did more foodwork spent less time on personal care, socialising, and hobbies, which was not the case for men. Conclusion: Those who seek to encourage home food preparation should be aware of the associations between foodwork and other activities and design their interventions to guard against unintended consequences.
Highlights
Observational evidence suggests that higher frequency of making [1,2,3,4,5] and eating [4,6,7]home-prepared meals, while not a prerequisite for a healthy diet [8], is associated with improved dietary intake and health outcomes
More time spent on foodwork may represent a higher frequency of preparing meals at home or a particular kind of home food preparation, preparing food ‘from scratch’ [20] or from unprocessed or minimally processed ingredients, which has been posited to be important to achieving high diet quality [21]
This study presents a secondary analysis of the 2014–15 United Kingdom Time Use Survey (UKTUS) [39], a cross-sectional national survey of UK residents aged 8 years and over
Summary
Observational evidence suggests that higher frequency of making [1,2,3,4,5] and eating [4,6,7]home-prepared meals, while not a prerequisite for a healthy diet [8], is associated with improved dietary intake and health outcomes. More time spent on foodwork may represent a higher frequency of preparing meals at home or a particular kind of home food preparation, preparing food ‘from scratch’ [20] or from unprocessed or minimally processed ingredients, which has been posited to be important to achieving high diet quality [21]. Increased time spent on home food preparation is associated with higher diet quality, but a lack of time is often reported as a barrier to this practice. We compared time use in individuals who do more versus less foodwork (tasks required to feed ourselves and our households, including home food preparation). Time use over 24 h was attributed to seven compositional parts: personal care; sleep; eating; physical activity; leisure screen time; work (paid and unpaid); and socialising and hobbies. Conclusion: Those who seek to encourage home food preparation should be aware of the associations between foodwork and other activities and design their interventions to guard against unintended consequences
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