52% of the world’s adults are trying to lose weight. Who are they?
The global struggle to lose weight is real. In the 43 markets surveyed within YouGov Global Profiles, 52% of global consumers are “usually trying to lose weight”. Who are they?
Saudi Arabia (63%) has the greatest proportion of people trying to lose weight, followed by the United Arab Emirates (61%) and Malaysia (61%). At the other extreme, only 40% of respondents from Japan and Hong Kong say they’re usually trying to lose weight, with Hungary following closely at 41%. Great Britain and the US fall at or near the average of 52%, with 52% and 54% respectively. However, the US and UK, along with Germany, also contain the highest proportion of respondents who disagree with the statement, “I’m usually trying to lose weight” (USA 33%; GB 36%; Germany 34%).
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If we take the group of all those who are trying lose weight in all markets and analyze it by gender, we find a fairly even split with 52% being female and 48% being male. When the data are analyzed by age, some larger differences appear. The largest portion (28%) belong to the 25-34 age group. Next are the adjacent cohorts with a fifth (19%) in the 18-24 range and another fifth (20%) aged between 35 and 44. Consumers between the ages of 45 and 54 make up only 16% and those older than 55 just 17% of the overall group.
Read the full YouGov Profile Peek on weight loss here
While 25-34 year-olds represent the largest group of people trying to lose weight, they are not more likely to be trying than people of other ages. A deeper examination of the data shows that interest in losing weight remains fairly stable throughout life-stage, ranging from 48% for 18-24 year-olds and 54% for 35-44 year-olds. This indicates that those interested in marketing diet products and services can expect to find an audience at any age.
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Methodology: YouGov Global Profiles is a globally consistent audience dataset with 1000+ questions across 43 markets. The data is based on continuously collected data from adults aged 16+ years in China and 18+ years in other markets. The sample sizes for YouGov Global Profiles will fluctuate over time, however the minimum sample size is always c.1000. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from India and UAE, which use urban representative samples, and China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Philippines, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, which use online representative samples. Learn more about Global Profiles.
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