COVID-19 has impacted several facets of life for individuals and families as the circumstances surrounding the pandemic have posed significant challenges to mental health, social relationships, and economic well-being [1,2,3]. Although COVID-19 is a novel stressful event, the negative effects of stressful changes on mental health and emotional well-being are well understood. For example, past studies have indicated that experiencing loneliness can trigger or increase the risk of overeating [4] because of the sense of relief and comfort that eating can provide [5,6,7,8,9,10]. Overeating is characterized as eating large amounts of food or consuming more calories than are used in a day [11].

Given the multi-faceted role of COVID-19 in inducing several stressors, including uncertainty, fear, social isolation, lack of physical activity, nutritional imbalances [12], and unemployment or financial uncertainty [13], it is not surprising that COVID-19 has created a domino effect for increasing levels of anxiety, depression, and unhealthy coping behaviors such as overeating [14,15]. Recent research indicates that the COVID-19 lockdowns have contributed to negative dietary changes due to the length of time of the lockdowns, as the lack of varied social interactions have decreased and taken a toll on mental and emotional health [16,17,18]. Studies in the U.S. and U.K. have found increased levels of loneliness and poorer coping mechanisms among adults since the pandemic began [19,20]. Increased loneliness during the lockdown led to feelings of stress, emptiness, and boredom, which contributed to the increased consumption of foods, especially unhealthy foods [21]. This finding was supported by a study conducted in Australia during the COVID-19 lockdown. Owen et al. (2021) discovered that those who felt more stress and isolation during this stressful period were more likely to report poor appetite or overeating [22].

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many individuals found themselves spending more time at home due to local shutdowns. Furthermore, stressors such as economic uncertainty, school closures, limited supplies, fear, uncertainty, and social isolation were felt by many households and extended families [23,24,25]. Families have an impact on dietary behaviors, and the increased time with families could have positive or negative effects on eating. In a study of food and eating as social practice, researchers emphasized that “families are created through relationships involving food and that feeding a family is an activity central to family life” [26]. Another study examining the relationship between parent and child eating behaviors indicated that the way children eat is strongly predicted by the mother’s food intake and mirrors primary caregivers’ eating style and food intake [27]. Although most research in this area is child-centered, a few studies suggest that even in adulthood, eating behaviors can be susceptible to family influence. For example, marital transitions or moving in with a partner have been linked to changes in diet [28,29,30]. These changes are likely due in part to new environmental and relationship stressors. A study of 300 college students found that family variables could account for more than 18% of the variance in compulsive eating behaviors among males. Males who tended to eat compulsively reported feeling dissatisfied with parental relationships and perceived their family as “incohesive and rigid” [31].

In recent years, researchers studying the family system and environment in the context of public health have used the following definition of family health: “A resource at the level of the family unit that develops from the intersection of the health of each family member, their interactions and capacities, as well as the family’s physical, social, emotional, economic, and medical resources” [32]. Family health includes: (1) a family’s internal and external health resources, such as access to transportation to get help, trust in healthcare workers, adequate housing, and financial security; (2) family external social supports; (3) the family’s social and emotional health processes, such as good communication and feelings of belonging; and (4) the family’s habits and culture regarding a healthy lifestyle [33].

Family health resources include both internal and material resources, such as the effects of family member health on family routines, trust in medical professionals, knowledge of outside resources, health insurance coverage, access to transportation, adequate housing, and so forth [33]. These resources may be particularly important to individual eating behaviors. Income, reliable access to food, and time availability are all resources that, when insufficient, may be associated with overeating [34,35,36]. Several researchers have found that household food insecurity negatively affects overeating and obesity in both adults and children [37,38,39,40]. In addition, individual member mental health is an internal family health resource. Research has shown an association between depressive symptoms and emotional eating, as well as higher consumption of sweet foods [41,42]. Other family health resources include the ability to manage stress and work–family conflict. Some studies have shown that work–family conflict can lead to coping mechanisms that interfere with a healthy diet, such as emotional eating and choosing high-fat foods [43,44,45].

The extant literature indicates that some sociodemographic characteristics, such as gender, race, and marital status, may affect the tendency to overeat. For example, a study of the gender differences in eating disorder symptoms found that while women were more likely to feel a loss of control when eating, men were more likely to report overeating [46]. However, other studies concluded that females are more likely to overeat when stressed than males [47,48]. In a study of the effects of COVID-19 on overeating and loss of appetite, Australian researchers found that individuals living with a partner and without children were the least likely to experience loss of appetite or overeat, compared with individuals living alone, single parents, or people sharing housing with non-family members [22]. When it comes to age and overeating, little is known about overeating in middle adulthood. Most studies have focused on groups that fall in the adolescent to early adulthood years age bracket, as it is the age where overeating is most likely to occur [48].