Online diet sites get biggest hits on New Year’s Day

23/08/2007

One of the top 10 New Year’s Eve resolutions is to lose the weight that has accumulated over the past year and throughout the overindulgent season of Christmas and New Year. On New Year’s Day many people spend their time researching trendy diets on the Internet for that quick fix weight loss programme.

The top 10 dieting and weight reduction sites were up 57% in hits on New Year’s Day 2007 compared to New Year’s Eve day 2006 stated Hitwise recently. Websites such as the Biggest Loser Club, eDiets and Weight Watchers all had massive increases in market share during that 24-hour period. The Biggest Loser Club went up 146%; eDiets up 82% and Weight Watchers went up 70%.

Flowing on from the television success of the Biggest Loser, the personal trainer from the show Jillian Michaels had set up her own website in 2006. On New Year’s Day after the New Year’s Eve party indulgences the website came in at number eight on the list. Another newcomer the Diabetic Living Diet came in at number 10.

Bill Tancer, Hitwise’s global research general manager stated “Even though websites like the Biggest Loser and Jillian Michaels’ diet are promoting balanced diets on websites that are growing more and more popular people are still trying to find the quick fix to lose the bulge.” He continues to say that the interest in diet sites does not last long and by the time the decorations have come down in the middle of January the number of hits starts to decline.

Females between 25 and 34 years of age are the major demographic for the Biggest Loser Club and the Jillian Michaels diet websites. 69% of visitors to those sites for the last four weeks of December 2006 are female according to Hitwise. Females make up 69% of the visitors to the Biggest Loser Club and 81% to the Jillian Michaels’ website. 35% and 39% of visitors to the Biggest Loser Club and the Jillian Michaels’ websites respectively were aged between 25 and 34 years old. This group were also the largest group of visitors to the Weight Watchers site at 30%. Those over the age of 55 years were also very interested in the Weight Watchers website, with 19% of visitors in this age group.