subject: Weight Loss Resolution, Take Example From French People [print this page] As usual after the Festive Season, most people make New Year's resolutions. it's always the same story in the first days of January, million of persons decide to set new goals for aspects of their life that they would like to improve, and the frequent ones are the following:
making money
reducing debt
quitting smoking
losing weight
managing stress
One of the most popular New Year's resolution on Earth is to lose weight and to get fit in the coming year. Let's take example on France because a recent official study [1] has provided us with reliable data about the resolutions of the French population for 2013.
First resolution: 37% of the French population consider that the most important change for them in the new year is to get more exercise in 2013 (32% in January 2012)
Second resolution: 36% want to preserve real moments of relaxation (37% in 2012)
Third resolution: 28% decide to take more care of their body (19% in 2012)
Fourth resolution: 27% want to spend more time with friends and family (34% in 2012)
Contrary to popular belief, the resolutions aiming at restrictions (cigarettes, alcohol, screen time) are less important in the eyes of the French people. The most desired change is clearly to lose weight: obviously the first and third resolutions are connected, so if we add these two figures, we can see that two French persons out of three have weight loss as their first New Year's resolution in 2013.
Another interesting point came out of this study: the vast majority of French people (82%) consider that they neglect their physical condition. The point is not to reach the level of athletes or professional bodybuilders but to start or increase their physical activity to get fit.
From these resolutions you could logically deduct that the French people are overweight, considering their reputation with regards to fine food and alcohols: France is famous for its Grande Cuisine, wines and cheeses, to name only a few known products. Surprisingly, it is exactly the opposite: a European survey [2] has found that the French people are the Best in Class in terms of weight compared to the rest of Europe. If you rank most European countries based on the average Body Mass Index, France has the best result with an average BMI slightly above 23 and the worst result for UK with an average close to 26. These results are valid for men as for women and the same applies to obesity figures, not only overweight: if you cluster the European population into four groups (underweight, normal weight, overweight and obesity) France has the highest score in normal weight and the lowest in obesity, and again UK has the worst figures for both measures.
Seeing their results, if 82% of French people think that they neglect their physical condition, you wonder what the other European citizens would have answered to this question, especially in UK.
Considering that 33.3 % of American adults are overweight and 35.9% obese and seeing that many European countries such as UK are not so fit either, it seems surprising that the French people who are already the fittest in Europe decide nevertheless to set weight loss as their first resolution for 2013. Maybe Americans and other Europeans should make also set a resolution to finally become healthy by losing weight and make sure that they don't quit by February.
Unfortunately we know that these resolutions are not kept in too many cases and almost forgotten after a few weeks. How come that people do the same resolutions year after year without success? It has probably to do with willpower and motivation but also to a timing factor, according to many experts: people are focusing on the long-term when they making their resolutions, they truly want to achieve these goals in the long run but they underestimate the willpower that will be needed in the short term to change their habits. Life takes over and people come back to their usual lifestyle after a few self-change attempts.
As a conclusion, we know that losing weight is easy in theory: eat less, move more and get support. But theory is rarely put into practice and in the case of weight loss, keeping the New Year's resolution to burn fat is a real challenge that requires more than a quick hints to have a slight chance of success, instead of being broken after a few weeks until the next New Year's Eve.
[1] FFEPGV, Fdration franaise d'ducation physique et de gymnastique volontaire, 12-2012 (Ipsos)
[2] Thibaut de Saint Pol, "Norms and attitudes to body fatness: a European comparison" in Population and Societies (INED) n 455, 04-2009
by: Mike Budd
welcome to Insurances.net (https://www.insurances.net)
