Why a New Year’s diet is doomed

IF YOU have already broken your New Year’s resolve to try to lose weight, don’t be too hard on yourself.

Apparently we are programmed to overeat – especially in winter. This could help to explain why hearty meals seem so appealing on dark, cold nights.

Unfortunately, it also means many New Year diets are doomed to failure. Would-be slimmers are advised to wait until the spring to start counting their calories.

The idea comes from Exeter University researchers who used a series of mathematical equations to explore the idea that over thousands of years, animals’ bodies have evolved to store a set amount of fat.

The calculations revealed it is more dangerous for animals, including humans, to be too thin, and starve to death, than be too fat.

As a result, the natural drive to put on weight is greater than the one to lose it. This subconscious urge to pile on the pounds is exacerbated by fatty, sugary, 21st century food, which is hard for the brain to resist.

Researcher Andrew Higginson said: ‘You would expect evolution to have given us the ability to realise when we have eaten enough, but instead we show little control when faced with artificial food.’

Dr Higginson’s computer simulation also suggested the drive to top up fat stores by eating more and moving less is particularly strong in the winter, when food was traditionally harder to come by. He said: ‘Storing fat is an insurance against the risk of failing to find food, which for pre-industrial humans was most likely in winter.

The researcher that dieters wait a few months until April or May.

By this time, crops are starting to grow and the body’s subconscious fear of running out of food is receding, making weight loss easier, the Royal Society journal Proceedings B reports.