Yo-yo dieters use Google

LITTLE ROCK — How common is the “new year, new you” weight-loss resolution?

In a recent unusual study, psychologists studied data on billions of diet-related searches provided by Google for a seven-year period. Beginning in 2005, they found that searches involving keywords like “diet,” “Atkins,” “Weight Watchers” followed an annual trend.

Searches spiked on average 29 percent nationwide from each December through the end of January, then fell month by month until the next new year’s surge.

The greatest surges occurred in states with high obesity rates: South Dakota (a 54 percent surge), Tennessee (50 percent) and North Dakota (46 percent). States with less obesity had smaller surges. Vermont had the lowest (18 percent).

Arkansans’ searches surged 31 percent to 36 percent.

The findings are only a crude indication of nationwide dieting. But they jibe with earlier research showing that many people resolve to diet in January but gradually lose interest, a cycle that one study called “false hope syndrome.”