What's your new year's resolution? Will you quit smoking? Exercise? Go on a diet?While I was home for the holidays, I saw a lot of commercials for fitness clubs and diets. Lots of them. And it occurred to me that the close of the year is likely a big time for companies in the business of getting people fit to advertise. There you are, having packed on the holiday pounds, watching television and worried about your personal finances, then along comes a commercial that tempts you to make a change in honor of the new year.
I decided to compare traffic, year over year, to sites having to do with fitness centers or dieting plans. I just picked a few of the better known ones at random to examine their traffic now versus a year ago. Based on what I found, it seems some people might have read this study concluding that diet is a better way to stay trim than exercise.
While the traffic between the two years seems fairly level to sites dealing with health clubs like Bally's, 24 Hour Fitness, and Crunch, there's a good bit more traffic going to the dieting sites like Nutrisystem and Weight Watchers.
Is a health club membership too costly in terms of time or money to be as popular among Americans looking to trim down this year? Does dieting seem the best way to make a positive change to one's health? Or is it the commercials? Feel free to weigh in with a comment.
