If you believed social media, most of us spent the first month of lockdown either baking sourdough or being outraged about the lack of toilet paper in supermarkets.
But according to an Office of National Statistics (ONS) report, the reality was even more sedentary than that – trapped at home because of COVID-19, we travelled less, slept more and watched more TV.
The online study looks at exactly how people in England and Wales saw their day-to-day lives change between 28 March and 26 April during the coronavirus lockdown, compared with 2014 to 2015.
Across the general adult population, by far the most popular form of entertainment was watching TV or streaming videos, which on average took up two hours and 53 minutes a day.
Reading was far less popular (28 minutes a day), as was contacting friends and family (16 minutes a day).
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There was a substantial reduction in the amount of time we spent travelling (one hour and six minutes less a day) and with little else to do, the time people spent gardening and doing DIY substantially increased (by 147%) to 39 minutes a day.
Most of us benefited from an extra 18 minutes sleeping or resting each day.
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It was either that or turn to the fridge – we spent one hour and 23 minutes a day eating and drinking, including having takeaways and drinking alcohol, and just under an hour a day cooking or doing the washing up.
There were also differences in the amount of time we spent exercising both before and after the lockdown, with the average duration of an exercise session similar across income groups, but those on higher incomes exercised more frequently during the week.
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