Preschoolers’ eating, activity and sleep behaviours were impacted during first COVID-19 lockdown

Preschool children's eating, activity, and sleep routines were disrupted during the spring COVID-19 lockdown, which may be detrimental to child health and development a study suggests. Parents of children (aged threeto five-year-old) due to start school in September 2020 shared their children's experiences of the spring lockdown with academics from the Universities of Bristol, Birmingham and Glasgow. The study, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and published on the preprint server MedRxiv , provides important insights into the impact of lockdown restrictions on health behaviours of preschool children in the UK. Twenty parents in the South West and West Midlands took part in the interviews. Half the sample were from Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds and half lived in the most deprived quintile. The researchers explored how 'lockdown' and its subsequent easing changed young children's everyday activities, eating and sleep habits to gain insight into the impact for health and wellbeing. The study found the spring COVID-19 lockdown negatively impacted on pre-school children's eating, activity and sleep routines.