ABSTRACT
The major goal of this study is to trace the emergence of SFC-related research across time, using a thematic map and a list of corresponding publications. In addition, this study aims to determine the author who has made the most significant contribution to this particular field. This study provides a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the historical development and current trends in sustainable food consumption research, examining 2265 articles published between 1990 and 2023. Using the bibliometrics package of R Studio software version 4.2.1 and its Biblioshiny package, articles from the Scopus and Web of Science databases are examined. In the field of sustainable food consumption, we identify five distinct research phases: initial stagnation, infant growth, post-economic crisis, expanding phase and COVID-19 and post-pandemic. While research on broader sustainability topics can be traced back to the early 20th century, a very limited number of articles on sustainable food consumption was published in the 1990s. However, the number of publications increased incrementally over time, with a notable uptick in interest around 2015, and the subject was still being discussed in 2022. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic marked the beginning of the most recent phase of research, which analyzed the consumption patterns of consumers before and after the pandemic. Our study highlights key authors, documents and sources related to sustainable food consumption. The United States, Italy and the United Kingdom emerged as the most active contributors to the research on sustainable food consumption and were additionally the countries with the largest global market shares for organic products. Major sub-themes including organic food, food waste, sustainable development and food security, together with consumer behavior and organic products appeared as being the most researched sub-themes of recent times. The results of this study suggest that more research is related to sustainable food consumption in countries with a low organic food market share. In addition, the investigation of actual data on food waste, carbon footprints and greenhouse gas emissions resulting from food production and consumption is essential to gain holistic insights.
ABSTRACT
Background: COVID-19 has changed the world and strongly affected the health of the people and the quality of their life. These changes might impact employees’ physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB). This study aimed to summarize the literature focusing on the COVID-19-caused changes in physical activity and sedentary behavior among the adult working population. Methods: Literature searches were conducted in June 2021 using multiple electronic databases. The following keywords and synonyms were used during the searching process: physical activity, sedentary behavior, COVID-19, employee. After the data cleaning process (duplicates, inclusion criteria), the title and the abstract of all manuscripts from the searches were screened independently by two reviewers. Results: Thirty-nine manuscripts were selected as a result of the searching process. Of these, 5 were SB related, 15 were PA related and 19 addressed both PA and SB. There were longitudinal (10), cross-sectional (28) and a case study (1) in the selected manuscripts. The majority of studies were conducted in the USA (6) and Europe (18), and four studies examined the PA and/or SB in multiple countries. The majority (34 studies) of the studies used subjective, self-reported, but mostly before-validated questionnaires. Objective measures were less common and used only 12.8% of the examined studies. Moreover, 76.4% of the studies described an overall decrease in the amount of PA during the COVID-19 pandemic. In three cases, researchers observed an increase in PA among the workers. Five studies reported no significant changes in the amount of PA during the pandemic. As far as SB is concerned, 18 out of 24 of the studies reported an overall increase in the amount of SB between the two periods. Four manuscripts reported no significant change in the amount of SB, and there was only one manuscript in the examined studies that reported an overall decrease in the SB time before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussion: There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic, including lockdown and work from home (WFH) policies, impaired the PA and SB level of the populations. This period has delivered an important message for the adult working population as well. They should be as active as possible and avoid high levels of SB and uninterrupted sitting time. Therefore, organizations, policies and public health bodies should motivate workers, especially office workers, to be more active and interventions must be developed to mitigate the negative effects of the COVID-19 on PA and SB.