The Impact of Quarantine on Food Consumption During Public Health Emergencies

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has prompted scholars to investigate the consumption phenomena during public health emergencies. Nonetheless, there remains a limited understanding of how quarantine measures influence consumer behavior, particularly in relation to food consumption. This study employed five studies to examine the impact of quarantine on consumers’ food consumption choices (hedonic consumption) through the lens of emotion regulation and attribution theories. The findings revealed the following: (1) Quarantine measures during public health emergencies encourage consumers’ hedonic consumption. (2) Quarantined individuals exhibit heightened deservingness compared with those who are not quarantined, leading to an increased willingness for hedonic consumption; (3) Furthermore, individuals in voluntary quarantine demonstrated stronger deservingness than those in mandatory quarantine, resulting in a greater propensity for hedonic consumption; (4) Resilience moderated the effect of quarantine on hedonic consumption. Individuals with low resilience exhibited stronger deservingness and were more inclined to indulge during quarantine than their high-resilience counterparts, who showed no significant differences between quarantine and non-quarantine conditions during public health emergencies; (5) The interactive effect of deservingness and self-control influenced consumers’ hedonic consumption choices during quarantine events. Specifically, individuals with high self-control abilities mitigate the impact of quarantine on unhealthy consumption, providing insights for developing interventions to improve mental health and sustainable allocation of consumption resources during public health crises.