Convenience Behavior Before And During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Cross-sectional Analysis

The transition from school to university is often accompanied by changes in students' lifestyles. Behaviors that contribute to an unhealthy lifestyle include avoidance (e.g. self-protective coping strategy) and social interaction behaviors as well as environmental factors at home. These can be summarized as so-called ,,convenience behaviors“ (Dreher et al., 2019). The Covid-19 pandemic has generally led to an increase in sedentary behavior, which can promote overweight and obesity. PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to investigate the convenience behavior, sitting time and the Body-Mass Index (BMI) of students in 2019 and 2021. METHODS: Two online surveys were conducted among students at the University of Mainz, Germany. The first survey (t1) was conducted in 2019 (N = 4351, 23.76 ± 4.35 years) and the second in 2021 (t2) (N = 1438, 23.68 ± 4.70 years). Convenience behavior was assessed using the “Convenience Behavior Questionnaire” including calculating the “Convenience Behavior Index (CBI)”. CBI values can range from 3 to 15, with lower values of the CBI indicating more convenient behavior. Differences between t1 and t2 in the CBI, sitting time and BMI were analyzed using t-tests for independent samples. Cohen's d was used to evaluate the effect size. RESULTS: The CBI of the students was 7.6 (± 1.3) in 2019 and 9.8 (± 1.3) in 2021. The CBI differed significantly from 2019 to 2021 (t(- 53.81) = 5197, p < .001) with an effect size of d = 1.76. Sitting time changed between t1 and t2 from 7.2 (± 3.0) hours per day to 8.4 (± 3.4) hours per day (t(-11.39) = 5212, p < .001), with an effect size of d = 0.34. The BMI was 23.0 (± 4.2) in 2019 and decreased slightly, to 22.8 (± 4.3) in 2021 (t(1.63) = 5375, p = .103). CONCLUSIONS: The convenience behavior and the BMI decreased from 2019 to 2021, while sitting time increased. Future studies should identify specific risk groups, such as gender, study subject or degree. Furthermore, strategies should be developed to reduce convenience behavior and counteract an unhealthy lifestyle. LITERATURE: Dreher, M., Hoffmann, S. W., Brendel, C., Heser, D. & Simon, P. (2019). Convenience Behavior and Being Overweight in Adults: Development and Validation of the Convenience Behavior Questionnaire. Frontiers in Public Health, 7, 20. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2019.00020