Online food retail, including websites and apps, provide people with easy access to food and beverages in the form of online grocery retailers, online meal kit retailers, and online food delivery platforms. Says research published in the ‘International Journal of Obesity’, given their widespread use, online food retail is likely to have significant implications for diets and health. Online food delivery platforms have been criticised for promoting unhealthy food. However, says this particular study, online grocery retail may offer some health benefits related to increased access to healthy food for people with limited transport, and reduced purchases of unhealthy food online. Online meal kit subscriptions have been identified as potentially health-promoting because they may increase the knowledge of cooking, improve the intake of vegetables, and deliver pre-measured quantities of ingredients along with recipes for healthy meals. Researchers say that given that diet is a leading risk factor for obesity and chronic disease, ensuring that platforms are not promoting unhealthy options through algorithmic boosting, or using pricing strategies can make healthy options more visible and appealing.
