Household cooking and eating practices across food system typologies in 135 countries from 2018 to 2022

Cooking meals at home is often recommended as a strategy to consume a healthy diet and avoid ultra-processed foods and unhealthy dietary patterns. However, cooking has traditionally been a highly gendered activity, and as food environments, economies, and social norms evolve globally, understanding of cooking behaviors in different contexts is needed. We analyzed repeated cross-sectional data from 135 countries from the 2018-22 Gallup World Poll (n = 638 192). We conducted unadjusted and adjusted negative binomial regression models, overall and stratified by gender, to estimate differences over time and by five food system typologies in the mean number of days cooking and eating lunch and dinner at home per week. Across most food system typologies, mean number of days cooking but not eating meals at home gradually increased between 2018 and 2019, peaking in 2020 (among females) and 2021 (among males) and then declined in 2022, trending towards prepandemic levels. Adjusted for covariates, participants from emerging and diversifying food systems cooked meals at home 13% (95% CI: 1.10, 1.16, P < .001) more compared to participants in rural and traditional food systems. Compared to males, females cooked meals at home 214% more frequently (P < .001). Across the globe, COVID-19 shifted cooking behaviors and exacerbated preexisting gender disparities in frequency of cooking meals at home. Future research is needed to better understand the role of cooking behaviors in the nutrition transition at global, national, and local levels.