Holiday season weight gain

  Season’s greetings from the sweet and savory food that comes along with the holiday season. Christmas time is where people tend to overload on the amount of food they put on their dinner plate. Along with the extra amount of carbs and calories comes holiday weight gain. 

     According to Time.com, “Holiday weight gain is a well-studied phenomenon, and researchers have found that people gain about a pound from November to January.” This excess weight sneaks up on those around the holidays and it takes more than five months to lose stated Real Simple, which also says that half of the weight comes off easily after the season, but the other half is what takes longer to lose. 

“I kind of expected those numbers to be honest, due to all the goods and treats we all eat around the holidays,” junior Dani Becker stated. 

     To some, one pound may not seem like much but unless you remain active and exercise, the years of sugary Christmas seasons add up your weight gain faster than you realize. Time.com reported that “researchers found that people don’t tend to shed that winter weight by the next year.”  

     Unfortunately, this holiday season weight gain in a problem for those who are already overweight or obese Time.com mentioned that “about 70 percent of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, and gaining weight in adulthood is a risk factor for all kinds of bad outcomes, including type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.” Once you gain the extra weight it becomes more difficult to lose. 

     “You can easily decrease what you eat so ultimately if you gain extra weight it is your fault if you decide to let it get worse from there,” says junior Chloee Roberson. 

     The weight gain around the holidays isn’t just an occurrence in the United States, it happens in other countries as well. Real Simple mentioned that “People in Germany tended to weigh the most around New Year’s and Easter, and those in Japan packed on pounds around New Year’s as well as Golden Week—the country’s other major holiday—in April.” 

     People everywhere tend to gain the extra amount of weight, due to the overload of calories. Senior Jackson Stockstill commented that “It’s interesting but not shocking that other countries are also affected by holiday weight gain because everyone eats a lot during the holidays.” 

     Time.com advises that it is best to avoid holiday weight gain in the first place. “The less one gains, the less one then has to worry about trying to lose it,” wrote the authors of the New England Journal of Medicine. So, for the holiday season, avoid the extra amount of carbs and calories in order to not gain the extra pounds.