Good news, the holidays are coming! Bad news, your current weight may be the lowest it’ll be all year, according to a study published in The New York Times.
Professor Brian Wansink of Cornell University, conducted a study that tracked holiday weight gain. Wansink conducted the study with Elina Helander of Tampere University of Technology, and Angela Chieh of Withings, a company which sells health-monitoring devices. Using data from thousands of users of Withings wireless scales, the researchers tracked weight gain and loss of participants from the United States, Japan, and Germany for a period of one year.
What they found was that people tended to gain weight in the 10 days before major holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s).
For the US and Germany, weights peaked around the New Year, whereas in Japan, weight gain peaked in early May.
According to the study, Americans weren’t able to lose holiday weight gain until late April.
The results also showed that about 1 in 4 of Americans who participated in the study were obese, which was lower than the national rate of 1 in 3.
However, it is important to note that the participants of the study were also owners of a scale that costs approximately $150, implying that they may have more means and motivations to to get their weight under control.
Regardless, Professor Wansink believes that the research can still help Americans make better health choices and better certain habits. That’s not to say you can’t enjoy the holidays, but rather just tweak certain practices.
“Instead of trying to come up with a New Year’s resolution to lose weight, it’s a whole lot better to maybe have an Oct. 1 resolution to gain less in the first place,” he said.
