I was playing with Google Insights for Search recently (which I like a lot better than Google Trends, by the way) when I came across this very interesting graph.
What you are looking at (and if you click through on the graph you will see this live on Google Insights) is the Google search history for the phrase “weight loss” going back to 2004. The x-axis of the graph represents the months of a year and each different colored line represents the search volume for that given year. The y-axis of the graph represents search volume.
There are a few interesting things to note.
First, start at the right of the graph, which represents December. You will notice that every year going back to 2004 (as far back as the data goes, I’m sure the trend looks the same going back farther) there is a huge spike in search volume for the phrase “weight loss” that carries into the start of January, which is on the left of the chart.
Second, that surge does not last long, steadily falling in the month of January at which point the search volume plateaus and it stays relatively stable for about 6 months. Then starting in July search volume slowly declines until it reaches its low point in December at which sometime in the middle to the third week of December there is yet again another huge spike in search on weight loss.
Third, notice that the blue line at the bottom of the graph, the one that is following the historical trend but at lower volume, is this year, 2008. That’s why it ends in October. 
What’s interesting to me here is how consistently lower than previous years volume the search history has been. An anomaly, given that people are bigger than ever, from what I read. Maybe people don’t care as much this year for some reason?
So what does this all mean? Well it really supports a very common picture that I see in people struggling with their weight. Great intentions at the beginning of the year, motivated by New Years Resolutions, some amount of success for the first 6 months or so and then a steady return to normal before it’s time to start the weight loss cycle again.
Don’t let this be you! If you need to lose weight and aren’t doing anything about it, don’t wait until January to do something about it, start now. Don’t let yourself be like the masses who fall off the program in six months. Find other people from whom to get support, whether it is online blogs or local Weight Watchers meetings.
Do what you can to break out of the cycle shown on this chart.
Good luck!
Like This Post? Give me the thumbs up 
