COVID Year in Review

It’s been a year since the COVID pandemic turned our “normal” lives upside down, but we can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, 2020 was a long, hard slog, but through hardship comes an acknowledgment of resilience and a healthy dose of gratitude.

Now, as we embark on 2021, with masks and social distancing, we’re starting to take a look back to see how our community changed during quarantine — and what new habits are likely here to stay in our brave new world.

An initial dip in logging in March spiked to more logging from May through July, then returned to normal for the remainder of the pandemic to date, indicating consistency pays off when it comes to logging.

Gen Z and millennials drove the growth in logging and outpaced the older generations.

And these generations fueled a dramatic increase in dance workouts from April to September — driving a 61% year over year spike in April for all users. Notably, TikTok had an incredible influence on Gen Z and created many trends, including an obsession with dance workouts culminating in a peak of 74% in April.

Lockdown changed our meal prep, eating and food shopping habits with an unsurprising spike in pantry staples and frozen foods. Pantry staples such as canned tuna and jasmine rice increased significantly in 2020. As did frozen foods like chicken and pizza. Nobody should be surprised to hear baking saw a major increase as well, where banana bread peaked and sourdough bread grew 18.8% as a whole.

However, some trends have staying power. We’re still logging foods like sourdough bread, canned tuna and frozen chicken more than in pre-COVID days. Already a top-logged food, frozen chicken peaked at 42% in July above 2019 levels, but by October, it started to trend back to normal levels.

On the other hand, banana bread and frozen pizza had tremendous spikes above 2019 levels in April, at 81% and 75%, respectively, only to return to normal by July.

Desk and home workouts grew to new levels. With so many of us working — and working out — from home, we saw an uptick in HIIT and “desk workouts” as we tried to incorporate fitness into the workday.

HIIT workouts spiked 122% above 2019 in April and May but started to level off and follow 2019 trends as summer started — again, driven by the Gen Z and millennial generations.

But what exactly is a desk workout? Think: standing desk, desk cycle, treadmill desk, deskercise, desk dips and desk yoga, to name a few.

To stay safe following the closing of gyms and other recreational facilities, there was a huge influx in logging outdoor, socially-distant workouts such as kayaking/canoeing, hiking and dog walking, whereas in-studio gym workouts crashed.

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