"Spring is the best time to lose weight": Evidence that dieting is seasonal and reaches peak intensity during Spring

Abstract

Does dieting intensify during Spring? Previous research suggests that body dissatisfaction is seasonal and peaks during Summer. Extending these findings to seasonal dieting, we contend that individuals’ apprehensions about heightened Summertime body dissatisfaction motivate Springtime dieting. To detect seasonal dieting, we examined the seasonal frequencies of 69 dieting hashtags within a database of 564 million tweets originating from the United States and spanning eight calendar years (2012–19). In total, we detected 628,355 dieting hashtags. Of these, 30% occurred during Spring, 20% during Autumn/Fall, and 25% during each of Summer and Winter. During Spring, there were ~64,000 additional ..