Changes in Dietary Life and Health Status During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020-2023) : A Study Using Newspaper Text Mining and Keyword Network Analysis

This study investigates societal perceptions and trends in health and dietary practices during and after the post-COVID-19 era, with the objective of informing strategies for health and dietary management in future pandemics. Utilizing the BigKinds platform, news articles from 2020 to 2023 were analyzed employing text mining and keyword network methodologies. The results of the term frequency (TF) analysis indicated that COVID-related keywords were more prevalent in the initial stages, whereas health-related keywords emerged more frequently in the later stages. Prominent keywords across all years included ‘health’, ‘diet’, ‘children’, ‘obesity’, and ‘nutrition’. The term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) analysis underscored terms such as ‘children’, ‘obesity’, ‘food’, and ‘home meal replacements’, with 2023 emphasizing chronic disease management keywords including ‘exercise’, ‘treatment’, and ‘obesity’. Co-occurring keywords such as ‘health-diet’, ‘health-management’, and ‘physical-activity’ consistently demonstrated significance, alongside unique terms like ‘nutrition-education’ and ‘home meal replacements-market’ in 2020, ‘low-spec food-drink’ and ‘fruit-vegetable’ in 2021, ‘nutrition-management’, ‘nutrition-information’, and ‘sodium-sugars’ in 2022, and ‘abdominal-obesity’, ‘health-examination’, and ‘convenience store-lunchbox’ in 2023. Cluster analysis revealed four primary clusters: ‘food distribution and consumption’, ‘health management and disease prevention’, ‘lifestyle and dietary management’, and ‘nutrition support and education’. Strong interconnections between ‘lifestyle and dietary management’ and ‘health management and disease prevention’ reflected significant pandemic-related trends. The findings underscore the necessity of developing effective health policies and tailored interventions to address challenges such as reduced physical activity, limited food access, and nutrient deficiencies during public health crises. Emphasizing support for vulnerable populations is essential to mitigate long-term negative effects and promote resilience in future public health emergencies.