This paper offers the first empirical evidence of the impact of COVID-19 on dietary diversity among children and adolescents in urban and rural families by using panel data collected in 2019 (before COVID-19) and 2020 (during COVID-19) in northern China.Our study uses panel data from 2,201 primary school students and 1,341 junior high-school students to apply the difference in differences (DID) method to estimate the impact of COVID-19 on dietary diversity among students in urban and rural families.We found that the dietary diversity score (DDS) of rural students decreased by 0.295 points (p ＜ 0.01) compared with that of urban students during COVID-19.Specifically,COVID-19 significantly reduced the frequency of rural students' consumption of vegetables by 1.8 percent,protein-rich foods such as soybean products and nuts by 6.0 percent,meats by 4.0percent,aquatic products by 6.7percent,and eggs by 5.3percent,compared with urban students.Further,COVID-19 had a significant negative effect on the dietary diversity of students from low-and middle-income groups,with the DDS of the low-income group decreasing by 0.31 points (p ＜ 0.01) and that of the middle-income group by 0.12 points (p ＜ 0.1).
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