August 2004

‘No diet’ is the new diet, according to study

Americans are saying. “Forget it!” They're done with being "on a diet." A new study from TNS, a leading global provider of market information, reveals that only 9 percent of American adults say they are "on a diet."

But, that doesn’t mean that Americans are walking away from weight-management programs. The study shows that 43 percent of adults say they are following a structured or organized eating program and 82 percent of them are restricting or limiting their consumption of some kind of food.

Of the 9 percent of respondents who say they're dieting, 70 percent are women, while among non-dieters who are following an eating plan, the split is much more even, at 59 percent women and 41 percent men. The wide-ranging study on Americans' eating habits shows that consumers are hearing recommendations about limiting certain food groups or products and integrating those ideas into their eating patterns, but they don't want the limitations of being on a strict "diet."

What kinds of foods are Americans "watching?" Forty-five percent are limiting their intake of fat (in general), followed by sugar (38 percent), salt/sodium (34 percent), transfats, which are a specific type of fat (30 percent), calories (28 percent) and cholesterol (26 percent).

Only a quarter of Americans are limiting their intake of carbohydrates and of those, the overwhelming majority (86 percent) admit to being on a low-carb program.

As the survey evidence suggests, consumers are migrating away from structured diets toward following a less regimented eating plan. When choosing a healthy program to adhere to, low-carbohydrate diet programs are regarded less favorably than low-calorie and low-fat diets. Among people who adhere to low-carb, low-calorie or low-fat plans, the level of commitment to their particular regimen is lowest among those on a low-carb plan.

Those still adopting low carb diets — 29 percent of those admitting to be "on a diet" are going low-carb — tend to be overweight or obese, more so than dieters on low-fat or low-calorie programs, based on their Body Mass Index, the measure used by the Centers for Disease Control to determine weight status. TNS calculated Body Mass Index based on height and weight as reported by study respondents.

The foods that are widely limited by more than a third of all adults include:

• Candy, cookies, ice cream (52 percent);

• Salty snacks (50 percent);

• Beverages containing sugar (48 percent);

• Pizza (43 percent);

• Bread, buns, rolls (40 percent);

• Potatoes, rice, other starches (39 percent);

• Pasta, macaroni, noodles (38 percent).

Source: TNS, www.tns-global.com

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