Using food delivery apps leads to higher risk of obesity and lower-paying jobs

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People who order takeaway food online are more likely to come from low-work households and are more likely to suffer from obesity, according to a new study.

The study, which focused on the UK and was published in the journal BMJ Public Health, also found that high-income households are more likely to buy groceries online than lower-income households.

The study was based on data from more than 1,500 households in London and northern England before the pandemic in February 2019 and aimed to find out how the online availability of food has affected social inequality and nutrition.

Overall, the researchers found that around 13 percent of respondents used takeout food delivery apps within seven days and 15 percent of respondents ordered groceries online within four weeks. Just over three percent used both services.

The researchers looked at both income and social status by occupation, which was divided into four categories, from managerial and professional jobs in the highest category to unskilled manual workers, state pensioners and the unemployed on social benefits in the lowest category.

While online grocery shopping was associated with higher income, there was no correlation between it and a person’s occupation.

At the same time, respondents with a lower social status were twice as likely to use a take-away food delivery service as respondents with higher-ranking occupations.

The study also found that those who used food delivery apps to order take-out food were 84 percent more likely to be obese.

“The nutritional quality of the food purchased was not measured in this study, but previous research suggests that use of food delivery apps is associated with lower diet quality and that foods purchased for take-out are more energy-dense and poorer in nutrients,” the study authors write.

More research is needed after COVID

“The association between online grocery shopping and higher income is an interesting finding and could reflect a number of factors,” Professor Jason Halford, head of psychology at the University of Leeds and former president of the European Association for the Study of Obesity, told Euronews Health in an email.

This could include no longer having to hunt for bargains and no longer having to rely on what groceries you buy online or in-store.

“While the link between occupational social status, obesity and fast food consumption is not surprising in itself, it is interesting to see this so clearly in online home food delivery,” added Halford, who was not involved in the study.

“The lack of correlation with income may say more about the type of dishes (ordered) and the additional costs associated with delivery,” he said, but pointed out that this sector has flourished after the pandemic.

The study had several limitations, including the fact that some data were based on self-reporting and households were unevenly distributed according to social status. The results were also drawn mainly from urban households, making them difficult to generalize to a larger population.

Because the study is observational, it is difficult to determine the reason for these results, but it is possible that “grocery shopping depends primarily on financial means, while purchasing takeaway food could be linked to culture and social group,” the authors said in a statement to Euronews Health.

“It is clear that online grocery shopping opportunities vary across the UK and we know that the nutritional quality of online grocery options varies,” added Dr Alexandra Kalbus, lead author and research fellow at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

She said it is still not known “how cost and availability influence our decision to order online compared to other socio-cultural influences.”

“More research is also needed to determine whether and how online food ordering patterns may have changed since the (COVID-19) pandemic, when many more businesses moved to online models,” she said.