Figure 2.

Changes in at-home eating and child-feeding behaviors among food-insecure emerging adults. Themes and examples of quotes from participants in the COVID-19 Eating and Activity over Time interview study from July to October 2020.

Theme	Example quote (participant characteristics)
Highly processed food intake	I think that I make up for fruit by eating baked goods because I have a sweet tooth, but usually, if I have money, I can just buy pineapples and stuff that I really like that is healthy still, but if I don’t, I can just go to Walmart or something and just get a bag of cookies or something like that for like two bucks. (Not a parent, Hispanic, food insufficient, household receives SNAPa/WICbbenefits) It [the pandemic] also has increased how much artificial food I have been eating. I don’t find as much access to . . . I generally like to eat fruits, vegetables, just things that are not heavily processed, and I have found that, that’s not been as readily available in my local grocery stores. This has been interesting to me, and interesting like maybe it’s rotting already and things haven’t. . . So that’s really hard for me to then put money into, so then I feel like my family doesn’t get a lot of fresh foods. (Parent, White, food insufficient, no household receipt of SNAP/WIC benefits) She’s [my niece] been eating a lot more junk food, I guess, because my mom’s trying to make her happy and make her more comfortable. So she’s been eating a lot of pizza, ice cream, and now she knows how to go into the fridge herself and grab whatever she wants and she loves Hot Cheetos. So it was like, she’s eating less healthy. When she was in school she was eating healthier. (Not a parent, Asian, food insufficient, household receives SNAP/WIC benefits)
Water intake	So, I only consume water now. I used to buy juice, but then, just with the pandemic, everything . . . I’ve been trying to decide what I really need versus what I want. (Not a parent, Asian, food insufficient, no household receipt of SNAP/WIC) With the kids I try to rotate it with water and more water than anything else. They would have juice here and there, but not as much as they would drink water every day. A lot. (Parent, Hispanic, food insufficient, household received SNAP/WIC benefits) Definitely more water ever since COVID. It’s just easier and cheaper and you can never go wrong with water. (Not a parent, Hispanic, food insufficient, no household receipt of SNAP/WIC)
Takeout food	Sometimes I don’t have any money for food or groceries, so I go for the cheapest things and the cheapest things are usually fast food, junk food, and stuff like that. (Parent, Hispanic, food sufficient, household received SNAP/WIC benefits) In the beginning I was eating probably more fast food at fast-food places mainly because people were hoarding all the food in stores. So it’s hard to find certain parts of making a meal. And then also just wanting to avoid the grocery store in general we would eat out more or order for food to get dropped off whatever the case is. But now I would say I cook more now that there’s more availability of food and stuff in stores, so we’ve transitioned over into cooking more and not eating out as much. (Parent, mixed/other race, food sufficient, household received SNAP/WIC benefits) My eating habits have, for sure, gotten worse, to how I considered them to be, I feel like I’ve just eaten out a lot and just eaten a lot more than I usually do, just because I spend so much time at home and got bored and I feel like eating was my fun thing to do. (Not a parent, Black, food sufficient, household received SNAP/WIC benefits)
Home food preparation	Well, it’s actually been a little better just because since, well there’s restaurants and all that were closed down it motivated me to cook more at home instead of going out. Especially, since I have little ones, I didn’t want to be taking them out. (Parent, Hispanic, food insufficient, household received SNAP/WIC benefits) Well, because I don’t go out as much to eat. So it’s just a lot of meals and having to even learn how to cook a little bit at home, and being able to more provide for myself in that sense. (Not a parent, Asian, food sufficient, household received SNAP/WIC benefits) So, that means I’m cooking at home more, I’m staying at home more, but when you’re done cooking, you get tired of it. So you go buy junk food, and then it’s more . . . definitely you only lasts for a certain amount of time where you’re trying to eat healthy because you’re thinking that, “Oh, this is the time where I could eat healthy, change how you look or feel,” but it doesn’t have that motivation and where it takes you to that point. (Not a parent, Asian, food insufficient, household received SNAP/WIC benefits)
Smaller portions	So now my daughter’s growing up more, she’s starting to eat more and so I have to cut what I need to eat a little bit more for her . . . my 4-month-old is still on formula, so that doesn’t really affect him. (Parent, Asian, food insufficient, household received SNAP/WIC benefits) About the same amount of meals. I mean, they’re not as big as how they were before, but about the same amount of meals. (Not a parent, Hispanic, food insufficient, no household receipt of SNAP/WIC) I feel like on my part as an adult, yes, I reduce a lot of like, trying to eat less than I used to eat before, just because I want my kids to eat enough and don’t feel like they have ate enough. I want them to feel full [until] the next meal I’m preparing. (Parent, Hispanic, food insufficient, household received SNAP/WIC benefits)
Meal scheduling challenges	Our schedules were not aligning, I was still working. So I’m working, I’m studying for nursing. Now she has online classes that I got to figure out and try to help out. And sometimes my sister has her. Sometimes my mom has to watch her. So they’re feeding her at different times as well. I can’t feed her on time as I should and wish I could because on those hours she’s usually in school with a consistent schedule and because she was doing online classes because of COVID it messed up her eating schedule. (Parent, Black, food insufficient, household received SNAP/WIC benefits) We’re a lot more sporadic with our eating. We used to try and have scheduled meals like breakfast, and then we do a lunch. Usually my child and I would be alone for dinner and we’d have a smaller meal. But now it’s, created a very lax relationship with eating in that sense . . . we’ve kind of changed from eating on a schedule, to now I feel like it’s just kind of a free for all . . . we’re always home, and so to have a distinct meal time has become very strange. (Parent, White, food insufficient, no household receipt of SNAP/WIC)

^aSNAP = Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

^bWIC = Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.