Food and Health: Time Spent Eating, Acquiring Food, Preparing Meals, and Being Physically Active Among U.S. Adults, 2022–2023

In this report, we examine how U.S. adults allocate their time to eating, food acquisition, meal preparation, and physical activity using data from the 2022–2023 Eating and Health Module (EHM) of the American Time Use Survey. We analyze how these behaviors vary across sociodemographic and health-related groups. On an average day in 2022–2023, adults spent 67.5 minutes eating and drinking as a main activity and 16.4 minutes eating while engaged in another activity, with differences across age, employment status, and household structure. Prepared, ready-to-eat foods obtained from restaurants, fast-food places, grocery store delis, and other establishments (including takeout and delivery) were purchased an averaged 2.2 times per week, and 36.8 percent of adults consumed food prepared away from home on a typical day. Grocery shopping and meal preparation were common activities, although responsibility for these tasks varied by sex, income, and household composition. Complementing these food-related behaviors, 64 percent of adults reported participating in physical activity during the past week, with higher participation among those reporting better health status and diet quality. These descriptive statistics provide national benchmarks on food- and health-related behaviors and highlight differences across population groups.