Talk is cheap when it comes to New Year’s resolutions to eat healthier: study

Every year after the holidays, people swear they will make amends for the extra calories they consumed in December by eating less in the new year.

But it turns out they actually eat the most around the time they say they’re going to eat the least. Americans buy roughly twice as many calories per serving in food in the first three months of the new year than during the holidays, says a new study.

The researchers tracked grocery spending habits for more than 200 households in New York over seven months.

The findings were split into three periods: a baseline period, between July and Thanksgiving; a holidays period, between Thanksgiving and New Year’s; and a post-holidays period, between New Year’s and March. The foods were divided into health and unhealthy, according to ratings supplied by grocery stores taking part in the study.

‘Even when people recognize that making a change would be best, they still continue to follow their behavioural scripts’

The post-holidays period was by far the most caloric.

“Despite New Year’s resolutions to eat healthier, people tend to hang on to those unhealthy holiday favourites and keep buying them in the New Year,” said Drew Hanks, one of the study’s authors.

That adds up to about 440 extra calories per serving during the holidays, rising to 450 calories after the holidays.

What seems to happen is the combination of a couple of things. People’s desire to eat healthier is earnest. There is a spike in purchases of healthier foods after the holidays.

But their plan has a huge flaw. Instead of buying green beans instead of french fries, they buy both.

“The finding that after New Year’s purchasing of healthy items increased and relatively less-healthy items remained the same as during the holiday period suggests that even though many people make a New Year’s resolution to eat healthier or lose weight, consumers are making purchasing decisions that only partly support these goals,” the researchers wrote.

It’s no wonder people have trouble reducing food consumption after the extended holiday feast, which runs from U.S. Thanksgiving at the end of November to Christmas. This becomes the norm, making it all the more difficult to stop.

“Even when people recognize that making a change would be best for them, they still continue to follow their behavioural scripts,” the study says.

So people cope as best they can. They buy the healthy foods they promised themselves they would, along with the unhealthy foods they promised themselves they wouldn’t.

The result is further evidence of the futility of New Year’s resolutions.

The Washington Post