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To the Editor:
Different countries celebrate different holidays, but many such celebration periods have one thing in common: an increased intake of favorite foods. How do holidays — such as Thanksgiving in the United States, Christmas in Germany, and Golden Week in Japan — affect weight gain in those countries? The use of wireless scales to measure weight patterns could alleviate some of the limitations possibly seen in traditional studies, such as demand characteristics,1,2 and provide useful insights regarding holiday weight gain.
Using data obtained from wireless scales (WS50, Withings), we recorded or interpolated the daily weight change of 2924 participants from three countries and extracted data for the 12-month period from August 1, 2012, to July 31, 2013. Data were obtained from 1781 residents of the United States (mean age, 42.2 years; mean body-mass index [BMI; the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters], 27.7), of whom 34% were women and 24% were obese (BMI ≥30.0); from 760 residents of Germany (mean age, 42.9 years; mean BMI, 26.6), of whom 34% were women and 19% were obese; and 383 residents of Japan (mean age, 41.6 years; mean BMI, 24.7), of whom 26% were women and 11% were obese. Additional details regarding the methods are provided in the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this letter at NEJM.org.
The daily weight of each person was normalized by first subtracting their starting weight at the beginning of August and dividing by their average weight over the year. The resulting weight-change curve was smoothed over a 7-day running-average window, subtracted by a linear trend, and averaged over all the participants in each country. We used a two-sided, paired Student’s t-test to assess whether the maximum weight at no more than 10 days after the start of the holiday differed from the weight that was measured 10 days before the holiday.
In all three countries, the participants’ weight rose within 10 days after Christmas Day, as compared with 10 days before Christmas Day (weight increases of 0.4% in the United States, P<0.001; 0.6% in Germany, P<0.001; and 0.5% in Japan, P=0.005). Significant weight gain was also observed around other major holidays in each country: participants’ weight increased by 0.3% in Japan during Golden Week (P<0.001), 0.2% in Germany during the Easter holiday (P<0.001), and 0.2% in the United States during the Thanksgiving holiday (P<0.001). Overall, from the minimum annual weight (Figure 1Figure 1Yearly Holiday Weight Gain.), weight increased by 0.7% (0.6 kg) in the participants from the United States and 1.0% (0.8 kg) in those from Germany during the Christmas–New Year holiday season and 0.7% (0.5 kg) in participants from Japan during Golden Week.
In these three prosperous countries, weight gain occurs during national holidays. Although this population sample may be wealthier, better educated, and more motivated toward weight loss than average, it still provides insights for practice. Advising a patient to have better self-control over the holidays is one approach.3,4 Yet given the weight-loss patterns shown in Figure 1, it might be better to advise patients that although up to half of holiday weight gain is lost shortly after the holidays, half the weight gain appears to remain until the summer months or beyond. Of course, the less one gains, the less one then has to worry about trying to lose it.
Elina E. Helander, Ph.D.Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this letter at NEJM.org.
Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland
Brian Wansink, Ph.D.
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
fblsubmissions@cornell.edu
Angela Chieh, M.S.
Withings, Paris, France
4 References- 1
Roberts SB ,Mayer J . Holiday weight gain: fact or fiction? Nutr Rev 2000;58:378-379
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Yanovski JA ,Yanovski SZ ,Sovik KN ,Nguyen TT ,O’Neil PM ,Sebring NG . A prospective study of holiday weight gain. N Engl J Med 2000;342:861-867
Free Full Text | Web of Science | Medline - 3
Hull HR ,Radley D ,Dinger MK ,Fields DA . The effect of the Thanksgiving holiday on weight gain. Nutr J 2006;5:29-29
CrossRef | Web of Science | Medline - 4
Phelan S ,Wing RR ,Raynor HA ,Dibello J ,Nedeau K ,Peng W . Holiday weight management by successful weight losers and normal weight individuals. J Consult Clin Psychol 2008;76:442-448
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