Out of the 2,000 consumers in the UK who want to eat and drink more healthily in 2015, 65% plan to eat more fruit and vegetables – making it the most popular way to change the approach to food in the new year, according to Canadean.
This is closely followed by having less fat and sugar – with 58% of consumers who want to change their diets resolving to ‘eat less fat’ and 53% to ‘eat less sugar’ in 2015.
Next to exercising more regularly, controlling portion sizes and limiting intake of processed foods are also seen as important methods of living more healthily, according to the survey conducted in December 2014.
Women, the young starting the year healthily
The survey shows that almost half of women (44%) make resolutions to eat healthier in the new year, compared to 27% of men.
The young are also more likely to be mindful of starting the year off healthily, with the motivation to eat better peaking among consumers aged 18 to 34 and falling thereafter.
Losing weight is a key goal for consumers, but so too is achieving a general feeling of well-being, with both goals motivating a similar number of consumers to try to eat healthier.
“It will be important to present consumers not only with low-calorie options, but also with holistically wholesome fare and ingredients offering positive nutrition,” says senior analyst Catherine O’Connor.
Good intentions unlikely to last
However, Canadean predicts that the renewed desire to make healthy food choices will not put off too many from eating out at the beginning of the new year.
Similarly, efforts to eat healthily are often short-lived, meaning that few consumers will make long-term changes to their diets.
“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,” says O’Connor.
