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Hitwise Intelligence - Bill Tancer - North America

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Thanksgiving and Online Dieting - Reflecting on a Negative Correlation

November 27, 2006

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year, its not just the turkey. It's the time of year that I can create one of my favorite charts... the relationship between visits to online dieting sites and searches for "Thanksgiving Recipes."

The chart below shows market share of visits (U.S.) to a custom category of top online dieting sites in red, with queries on "Thanksgiving Recipes" in blue.

thanksgiving online dieting.png

The negative correlation between the two subjects appears to be very clear. This year I decided to dig a little deeper and examine the online dieting custom category on a daily basis last year between Thanksgiving and New Years.

dieting biggest loser.png

Apparently, Thanksgiving marks the slide downwards to the lowest dieting day of the year, Christmas Day. Notice the brief post-Thanksgiving spike, that is most likely due to a renewed, but short-lived interest in diets following last year's season finale of NBC's The Biggest Loser (which aired on November 29, 2005).

Posted by Bill Tancer at 11:38 AM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Food and Beverage | Health and Medical