Healthier eating is top UK New Year’s resolution

05-Jan-2015 - Last updated on 05-Jan-2015 at 12:24 GMT

Younger people and women are most likely to resolve to improve their eating habits

Related tags Nutrition

A third of UK consumers intend to eat more healthily in 2015 – but nearly half will have dropped their resolution by the end of January, according to a Canadean survey.

The market researcher polled 2,000 UK adults in December 2014 and found that healthy eating was the number one New Year’s resolution, potentially driving demand for healthier, lighter foods and ingredients.

“It will be important to present consumers not only with low-calorie options, but also with holistically wholesome fare and ingredients offering positive nutrition,” said senior analyst at Canadean, Catherine O’Connor.

Of those who said they intended to eat more healthily in the year ahead, two-thirds (65%) said they planned to eat more fruit and vegetables, while 58% said they intended to eat less fat and 53% vowed to cut sugar.

The ‘healthy eating’ resolution was especially common among those aged 18 to 34, and women – 44% of whom resolve to eat healthier in the New Year, compared to 27% of men. Improving general well-being and a desire to lose weight were the main drivers for a similar number of consumers.

O’Connor added: “A quarter of all those who are trying to eat healthily in the New Year will abandon those efforts within a couple of weeks, with this number rising to nearly half within a month.”