A record-breaking two out of three women tried to lose weight in the past year – and more men than ever are trying to slim down, figures have shown.
This means that last year a total of 29million Britons decided to exercise or diet to ward off problems associated with weight gain.
The proportion of women who tried to shed some weight went up last year from 63 per cent to an all-time high of 65 per cent.
More than half (55 per cent) of Brits having tried to lose weight in the past year
And the percentage of men who attempted to cut down the size of their paunch rose from 42 to 44 per cent in 2013, according to an annual survey by retail analyst Mintel.
The figures come after Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence spoke out against the pressure on women to look thin, calling on Hollywood to drop its obsession with unrealistically skinny body images.
Official statistics show 61 per cent of the UK population are still overweight. Of these, more than 13million are clinically obese – with the cost of NHS treatment for associated health problems such as heart disease and diabetes running to billions of pounds every year.
Encouragingly, the survey showed that exercise seemed to be more popular with slimmers than faddy diets, with around 60 per cent of people choosing to get a bit more active when they wanted to manage their weight.
The 5:2 diet is now the nation's favourite, followed by Atkins and Dukan
However many of the 29million who tried to lose weight last year used a combination of exercise and healthy eating. Just under half said they tried to cut back on fatty foods and 48 per cent limited themselves to smaller portions and consumed less sugar.
In 2013, 2.32million took up fashionable diet crazes – with around a million trying the 5:2 regime, which involves reducing calorie intake on two days a week.
The programme’s part-time approach led to it coming out on top of the list of the year’s popular diets. The regime is particularly effective at reducing belly fat and lowering the cholesterol levels associated with blocked arteries.
Coming in second place was the low carbohydrate Atkins diet – and 25 per cent of dieters opted for high protein and low fat weight loss regimes such as the Dukan diet.
But while millions see the New Year as a good time to try and get healthy, with a host of celebrity weight loss DVDs cashing in on the trend, the figures revealed that many slimmers’ efforts are doomed to failure.
Mintel found that out of everyone who tried dieting last year, one in five said their good intentions had soon fallen by the wayside thanks to a lack of willpower.
More than a third found it hard to count calories when dining out and around one in ten said their lives were so busy that it was too hard to stick to a diet.
Despite struggling to eat healthily, many people said they still viewed food aimed specifically at dieters with suspicion. Diet food sales dipped by 1 per cent in 2012 and then went on to increase by a marginal 2 per cent in 2013. The survey found most people didn’t trust the products’ ingredients, such as artificial sweeteners.
They also tended to resent the small portion sizes and questioned whether any of the meals were actually lower in calories than standard products.
Mintel’s senior food analyst Emma Clifford said: ‘Sales of diet meals are struggling, which is at odds with the huge consumer interest in losing weight, framed by rising levels of obesity.
‘There is a myriad of other routes towards weight loss that consumers prefer over buying “light” or “diet” food, with exercising more being the most popular. Furthermore, the market is hampered by negative perceptions in terms of healthiness and portion sizes.’
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